HE 


ELIZABETH  STUART  PHELPS* 


I 


fcp  (Ki^abeti)  Stuart 


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THE   GATES   BETWEEN 


BY 


ELIZABETH  STUART 


Write  the  things  which  thou  hast  seen,  and  the  things 
which  are,  and  the  things  which  shall  be  hereafter. 

REVELATION 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1887, 
BY  ELIZABETH  STUART  PIIELPS. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge: 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  II.  0.  Iloughton  &  Co. 


8-8-7 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 


CHAPTER  I. 

IF  the  narrative  which  I  am  about  to  recount 
perplex  the  reader,  it  can  hardly  do  so  more 
than  it  has  perplexed  the  narrator.  Explana 
tions,  let  me  say  at  the  start,  I  have  none  to 
offer.  That  which  took  place  I  relate.  I  have 
had  no  special  education  or  experience  as  a 
writer ;  both  my  nature  and  my  avocation  have 
led  me  in  other  directions.  I  can  claim  noth 
ing  more  in  the  construction  of  these  pages 
than  the  qualities  of  a  faithful  reporter.  Such, 
I  have  tried  to  be. 

It  was  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  November  of 
the  year  187-,  that  I,  Esmerald  Thome,  fell 
upon  the  event  whose  history  and  consequences 
I  am  about  to  describe. 

Autobiographies  I  do  not  like.     I   should 


933856 


2  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

•have  been  positive  at  any  time  during  my  life 
of  forty-nine  'years  that  no  temptation  could 
&ia<£}mier  OYejr;tha;t  precipice  of  presumption 
and  illusion  which  awaits  the  man  who  con 
fides  himself  to  the  world.  As  it  is  the  unex 
pected  which  happens,  so  it  is  the  unwelcome 
which  we  choose.  I  do  not  tell  this  story  for 
my  own  gratification.  I  tell  it  to  fulfill  the 
heaviest  responsibility  of  my  life.  However 
I  may  present  myself  upon  these  pages  is  the 
least  of  my  concern  ;  whether  well  or  ill,  that 
is  of  the  smallest  possible  consequence. 
Touching  the  manner  of  my  telling  the  story, 
I  have  heavy  thoughts  ;  for  I  know  that  upon 
the  manner  of  the  telling  will  depend  effects 
too  far  beyond  the  scope  of  any  one  human 
personality  for  me  to  regard  them  indiffer 
ently.  I  wish  I  could.  I  have  reason  to  be 
lieve  myself  the  bearer  of  a  message  to  many 
men.  This  belief  is  in  itself  enough,  one  would 
say,  to  deplete  a  man  of  paltry  purpose.  I 
wish  to  be  considered  only  as  the  messenger, 
who  comes  and  departs,  and  is  thought  of  no 
more.  The  message  remains,  and  should  re 
main,  the  only  material  of  interest. 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  3 

Owing  to  some  peculiarities  in  the  situation, 
I  am  unable  to  delegate,  and  do  not  see  my 
way  to  defer,  a  duty  —  for  I  believe  it  to  be  a 
duty  —  which  I  shall  therefore  proceed  to  per 
form  with  as  little  apology  as  possible.  I 
must  trust  to  the  gravity  of  my  motive  to  over 
come  every  trifling  consideration  in  the  mind  of 
my  readers  ;  as  it  has  solemnly  done  in  my  own. 

In  order  to  give  force  to  my  narrative,  it 
will  be  necessary  for  me  to  be  more  personal 
in  some  particulars  than  I  could  have  chosen, 
and  to  revert  to  certain  details  of  my  early  his 
tory  belonging  to  that  category  which  people 
of  my  profession  or  temperament  are  wont  to 
dismiss  as  "  emotional."  I  have  had  strange 
occasion  to  learn  that  this  is  a  deep  and  delicate 
word,  which  can  never  be  scientifically  used, 
which  cannot  be  so  much  as  elementally  under 
stood,  except  by  delicacy  and  by  depth.  These 
are  precisely  the  qualities  of  which  this  is  to 
be  said,  —  he  who  most  lacks  them  will  be  most 
unaware  of  the  lack. 

There  is  a  further  peculiarity  about  such  un- 


4  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

consciousness  ;  that  it  is  not  material  for  educa 
tion.  You  can  teach  a  man  that  he  is  not  gen 
erous,  or  true,  or  able.  You  can  never  teach 
him  that  he  is  superficial,  or  that  he  is  not 
fine. 

I  have  been  by  profession  a  physician ;  the 
son  of  a  chemist ;  the  grandson  of  a  surgeon  ; 
a  man  fairly  illustrative  of  the  subtler  signifi 
cance  of  these  circumstances  ;  born  and  bred, 
as  the  children  of  science  are  ;  —  a  physical 
fact  in  a  world  of  physical  facts ;  a  man  who 
rises,  if  ever,  by  miracle,  to  a  higher  set  of 
facts ;  who  thinks  the  thought  of  his  father, 
who  does  the  deed  of  his  father's  father, 
who  contests  the  heredity  of  his  mother,  who 
shuts  the  pressure  of  his  special  education  like 
a  clasp  about  his  nature,  and  locks  it  down 
with  the  iron  experience  of  his  calling. 

It  was  given  to  me,  as  it  is  not  given  to  all 
men  of  my  kind,  to  know  a  woman  strong 
enough — and  sweet  enough  —  to  fit  a  key  unto 
this  lock. 

Strong  enough  or  sweet  enough,  I  should 
rather  have  said.  The  two  are  truly  the  same. 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  5 

The  old  Hebrew  riddle  read  well,  that  "  out  of 
strength  shall  come  forth  sweetness."  There 
is  the  lioness  behind  the  rarest  honey. 

Like  others  of  my  calling,  I  had  seen  the 
best  and  the  worst  and  the  most  of  women. 
The  pathological  view  of  that  complex  subject 
is  the  most  unfortunate  which  a  man  can  well 
have.  The  habit  of  classifying  a  woman  as 
neuralgic,  hysteric,  dyspeptic,  instead  of  un 
selfish,  intellectual,  high-minded,  is  not  a 
wholesome  one  for  the  classifier.  Something 
of  the  abnormal  condition  of  the  clientele  ex 
tends  to  the  adviser.  A  physician  who  has  a 
healthy  and  natural  view  of  women  has  the 
making  of  a  great  man  in  him. 

I  was  not  a  great  man.  I  was  only  a  suc 
cessful  doctor ;  more  conscious  in  those  days 
of  the  latter  fact,  and  less  of  the  former,  be  it 
admitted,  than  I  am  now.  A  man's  avocation 
may  be  at  once  his  ruin  and  his  exculpation. 
I  do  not  know  whether  I  was  more  self-confi 
dent  or  even  more  willful  than  other  men  to 
whom  is  given  the  autocracy  of  our  profession, 
and  the  dependence  of  women  which  accompa- 


6  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

nies  it.  I  should  not  wish  to  have  the  appear 
ance  of  saying  an  unmanly  thing,  if  I  add 
that  this  dependence  had  wearied  me. 

It  is  more  likely  to  be  true  that  I  differed 
from  most  other  men  in  this  :  that  in  all  my 
life  I  have  known  but  one  woman  whom  I 
loved,  or  wished  to  make  my  wife.  I  was 
forty-five  years  old  before  I  saw  her. 

Who  of  us  has  not  felt  at  the  Play,  the 
strong  allegorical  power  in  the  coming  of  the 
first  actress  before  the  house?  The  hero  may 
pose,  the  clown  dance,  the  villain  plot,  the  war 
rior,  the  king,  the  merchant,  the  page,  fuddle 
the  attention  for  the  nonce  :  it  is  a  dreary  busi 
ness  ;  it  is  like  parsing  poetry ;  it  is  a  gram 
matical  duty;  the  Play  could  not,  it  seems, 
go  on  without  these  superfluities.  We  listen, 
weary,  regret,  find  fault,  and  acquire  an  aver 
sion,  when  lo !  upon  the  monotonous,  mascu 
line  scene,  some  slender  creature,  shining,  all 
white  gown  and  yellow  hair  and  soft  arms 
and  sweet  curves  comes  gliding  —  and,  hush  ! 
with  the  Everwomanly,  the  Play  begins. 

I  do  not  think  this  feeling  is  one  peculiar  to 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  7 

our  sex  alone ;  I  have  heard  women  express 
the  same  in  the  strongest  terms. 

So,  I  have  sometimes  thought  it  is  with  the 
coming  of  the  Woman  upon  the  stage  of  a 
man's  life.  If  the  scenes  have  shifted  for  a 
while  too  long,  monopolized  by  the  old  dismal 
male  actors  whose  trick  and  pose  and  ac 
cent  he  knows  so  well  and  understands  too 
easily,  —  and  if,  then,  half -through  the  drama, 
late  and  longed-for,  tardily  and  splendidly, 
comes  the  Star,  and  if  she  be  a  fine  creature, 
of  a  high  fame,  and  worthy  of  it,  —  ah,  then 
look  you  to  her  spectator.  Eapt  and  raptur 
ous  she  will  hold  him  till  the  Play  is  done. 

So  she  found  me  —  held  me  —  holds  me. 
The  best  of  it,  thank  God,  is  the  last  of  it. 
So,  I  can  say,  she  holds  me  to  this  hour,  where 
and  as  we  are. 

It  was  on  this  wise.  On  my  short  summer 
vacation  of  that  year  from  which  I  date  my 
happiness,  and  which  I  used  to  call  The  Year 
of  my  Lady,  as  others  say  The  Year  of  Our 
Lord,  I  tarried  for  a  time  in  a  mountain  vil 
lage,  unfashionable  and  beautifid,  where  my 


8  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

city  patients  were  not  likely  to  hunt  me  down. 
Fifty-three  of  them  had  followed  me  to  the 
seashore  the  year  before,  and  I  went  back  to 
town  a  harder-worked  man  than  I  left  it. 
Even  a  doctor  has  a  right  to  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  a  vacation,  and  that  time  I 
struck  out  for  my  rights.  I  cut  adrift  —  de 
nied  my  addresses  even  to  my  partner  —  and 
set  forth  upon  a  walking  tour  alone,  among  the 
hills.  Upon  one  point  my  mind  was  made  up  : 
I  would  not  see  a  sick  woman  for  two  weeks. 

I  arrived  at  this  little  town  of  which  I  speak 
upon  a  Saturday  evening.  I  remember  that 
it  was  an  extraordinary  evening.  Thunder 
came  up,  and  clouds  of  colors  such  as  I  found 
remarkable.  I  am  not  an  adept  in  describ 
ing  these  things,  but  I  remember  that  they 
moved  me.  I  went  out  and  followed  the 
trout-brook,  which  was  a  graceful  little  stream, 
and  watched  the  pageant  in  the  skies  above 
the  tops  of  the  forest.  The  trees  on  either 
side  of  the  tiny  current  had  the  look  of  souls 
regarding  each  other  across  a  .barrier,  so 
solemn  were  they.  They  stood  with  their  gaze 


TEE  GATES  BETWEEN.  9 

upon  the  heavens  and  their  feet  rooted  to  the 
earth,  and  seemed  like  sentient  creatures 
who  knew  why  this  was  as  it  was. 

I,  walking  with  my  eyes  upon  them,  feet  un 
guarded,  and  fancy  following  a  cloud  of  rose- 
color  that  hung  fashioned  in  the  outline  of  a 
mighty  wing  above  me,  caught  my  foot  in 
a  gnarled  old  hickory  root  and  fell  heavily. 
When  I  tried  to  rise  I  found  that  I  was  con 
siderably  hurt. 

I  was  a  well,  vigorous  man,  not  accustomed 
to  pain,  which  took  a  vigorous  form  with 
me;  and  I  was  mortified  to  find  myself  quite 
faint,  too  much  so  even  to  disturb  myself 
over  the  situation,  or  to  wonder  who  would  be 
likely  to  institute  a  searching-party  for  me, 
—  a  stranger,  but  an  hour  since,  registered  at 
the  hotel. 

With  that  ease  which  I  condemned  so  hotly 
in  my  patients  I  abandoned  myself  to  the 
physical  pang,  got  back  somehow  against  the 
hickory,  and  closed  my  eyes ;  devoid  even  of 
curiosity  as  to  the  consequences  of  the  acci 
dent  ;  only  "  attentive  to  my  sensations,"  as 


10  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

a  great  writer  of  my  day  put  it.  I  had  often 
quoted  him  to  nervous  people  whom  I  consid- 
ered  as  exaggerating  their  sufferings;  I  did 
not  recall  the  quotation  at  that  moment. 

"  Oh !  you  are  hurt! "  a  low  voice  said. 

I  was  a  bit  fastidious  in  voices  at  that  time 
of  my  life.  To  say  that  this  was  the  sweetest 
I  had  ever  heard  would  not  express  what  I 
mean.  It  was  the  dearest  I  had  ever  heard. 
From  that  first  moment,  —  before  I  saw  her 
face,  —  drowned  as  I  was  in  that  wave  of  mean 
physical  agony,  given  over  utterly  to  myself, 
I  knew,  and  to  myself  I  said  :  "  It  is  the  dear 
est  voice  in  all  this  world." 

A  woman  on  the  further  side  of  the  trout- 
brook  stood  uncertain,  pitifully  regarding  me. 
She  was  not  a  girl,  —  quite  a  woman  ;  ripe, 
and  self-possessed  in  bearing.  She  had  a 
beautiful  head,  and  bright  dark  hair ;  her 
head  was  bare,  and  her  straw  mountain-hat 
hung  across  one  arm  by  the  strings.  She  had 
been  bathing  her  face  in  the  water,  which  was 
of  a  pink  tint  like  the  wing  above  it.  As  she 
stood  there,  she  seemed  to  be  shut  in  and 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  11 

guarded  by,  dripping  with,  that  rose-color,  — 
to  inhale  it,  to  exhale  it,  to  be  a  part  of  it,  to 
be  it.  She  looked  like  a  blossom  of  the  live 
and  wonderful  evening. 

"You  are  seriously  hurt,"  she  repeated.  "I 
must  get  to  you.  Have  patience  ;  I  will  find 
a  way.  I  will  help  you." 

The  bridge  was  at  some  distance  from  us, 
and  the  little  stream  was  brawling  and  strong. 

"  But  it  is  not  deep,"  she  said.  "  Do  not  feel 
any  concern.  It  will  do  me  no  harm."  As  she 
spoke,  she  swung  herself  lightly  over  into  the 
brook,  stepping  from  stone  to  stone,  till  these 
came  to  an  abrupt  end  in  the  current.  There, 
for  an  instant  poised,  but  one  could  not  say 
uncertain,  she  hung  shining  before  me  —  for 
her  dress  was  white,  and  it  took  and  took 
and  took  the  rose-color  as  if  she  were  a  white 
rose,  blushing.  She  then  plunged  directly 
into  the  water,  which  was  knee-deep  at  least, 
and  waded  straight  across  to  me. 

As  she  climbed  the  bank,  her  thick  wet  dress 
clinging  to  her  lovely  limbs,  and  her  hands 
outstretched  as  if  in  hurrying  pity,  I  closed 


12  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

my  eyes  again  before  her.  I  thought,  as  I 
did  so,  how  much  exquisite  pleasure  was  like 
perfect  pain. 

She  climbed  the  bank  and  stooped  from  her 
tall  height  to  look  at  me;  knelt  upon  the 
moss,  and  touched  me  impersonally,  like  the 
spirit  that  she  seemed. 

"You  are  very  wet !  "  I  cried.  "  The  water 
is  cold.  I  know  these  mountain  brooks.  You 
will  be  chilled  through.  Pray  get  home  and 
send  me  —  somebody." 

"  Where  are  you  hurt  ?  "  she  answered,  with 
a  little  authoritative  wave  of  the  hand,  as  if 
she  waved  my  words  away.  She  had  firm,  fine 
hands. 

"  I  have  injured  the  patella  —  I  mean  the 
knee-pan,"  I  replied.  She  smiled  indulgently. 
She  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  tell  me  that 
my  lesson  in  elementary  anatomy  was  at  all 
superfluous.  But  when  I  saw  her  smile  I 
said :  — 

"  That  was  unconscious  cerebration." 

"  Why,  of  course,"  she  answered,  nodding 
pleasantly. 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  13 

"  Go  home,"  I  urged.  "  Go  and  get  yourself 
out  of  these  wet  things.  No  lady  can  bear 
it ;  it  will  injure  you."  She  lifted  her  head, 
—  I  thought  she  carried  it  like  a  Greek,  — 
and  regarded  me  with  her  wide,  grave  eyes.  I 
met  hers  firmly,  and  for  a  moment  we  consid 
ered  each  other. 

"  It  is  plain  that  you  are  a  doctor,"  she 
said  lightly,  with  a  second  smile.  "  I  presume 
you  never  see  a  well  woman ;  at  least  —  be 
lieve  you  see  one  now.  I  shall  mind  this  wet 
ting  no  more  than  if  I  were  a  trout  or  a  gray 
squirrel.  I  am  perfectly  able  to  give  you 
whatever  help  you  require.  And  by  your 
leave,  I  shall  not  go  home  and  get  into  a  dry 
dress  until  I  see  you  properly  cared  for.  Now  ! 
Can  you  step  ?  Or  shall  I  get  a  wagon,  and 
a  farm-hand  ?  I  think  we  could  back  a  horse 
down  almost  to  this  spot.  But  it  would  take 
time.  So  ?  —  Will  you  try  it?  Gently. 
Slowly.  Don't  let  me  hurt  you,  or  blunder. 
I  see  that  you  are  in  great  pain.  Don't  be 
afraid  to  lean  on  me.  I  am  quite  strong.  I 
am  able.  If  you  can  crawl  a  few  steps  "  — 


14  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

Steps  !  I  would  have  crawled  a  few  miles. 
For  she  put  her  sweet  arms  about  me  as  simply 
and  nobly  as  if  I  had  been  a  wounded  child  ; 
and  with  such  strength  of  the  flesh  and  un 
consciousness  of  the  spirit  as  I  had  never 
beheld  in  any  woman,  she  did  indeed  support 
me  out  of  the  forest  in  such  wise  that  my  poor 
pain  of  the  body  became  a  great  and  glorified 
fact,  for  the  joy  of  soul  that  I  had  because  of 
her. 

It  had  begun  to  be  easy,  in  my  day,  to  make 
a  mock  at  many  dear  and  delicate  beliefs  ;  not 
those  alone  which  pertain  to  the  life  eternal, 
but  those  belonging  to  the  life  below.  The 
one  followed  from  the  other,  perhaps.  That 
which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  call  love 
was  an  angel  whose  wings  had  been  bruised 
by  our  unbelieving  clutch.  It  was  not  the 
fashion  to  love  greatly.  One  of  the  leading 
scientists  of  my  time  and  of  my  profession 
had  written  :  "  There  is  nothing  particularly 
holy  about  love."  So  far  as  I  had  given 
thought  to  the  subject,  I  had,  perhaps,  agreed 
with  him.  It  is  easy  for  a  physician  to  agree 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  15 

to  anything  which  emphasizes  the  visible,  and 
erases  the  invisible  fact.  If  there  were  any 
one  form  of  the  universal  delusion  more  than 
all  others  "gone  out  "  in  the  days  of  which  I 
speak,  it  was  the  dear,  old-fashioned  delirium 
called  loving  at  first  sight.  I  was  never  ex 
actly  a  scoffer  ;  but  I  had  mocked  at  this  fable 
as  other  men  of  my  sort  mock,  —  a  subject 
for  prophylactics,  like  measles  or  scarlet  fever ; 
and  when  you  said  that,  you  had  said  the  whole. 
Be  it,  then,  recorded,  be  it  admitted,  without 
let  or  hindrance,  that  I,  Esmerald  Thorne, 
physician  and  surgeon,  forty-five  years  old, 
and  of  sane  mind,  did  love  that  one  woman, 
and  her  only,  and  her  always,  from  the  moment 
that  my  unworthy  eyes  first  looked  into  her 
own,  as  she  knelt  before  me  on  the  moss  beside 
the  mountain  brook,  —  from  that  moment  to 
this  hour. 


CHAPTER  H. 

THUS  half  in  perfect  poetry,  part  in  simplest 
prose,  opened  the  first  canto  of  that  long  song 
which  has  made  music  in  me  ;  which  has  made 
music  of  me,  since  that  happy  night.  Of  the 
countless  words  which  we  have  exchanged  to 
gether  in  times  succeeding,  these,  the  few  of 
our  first  meeting  are  carved  upon  my  brain  as 
salutations  are  carved  in  stone  above  the  door 
ways  of  mansions.  He  that  has  loved  as  I  did, 
may  say  why  this  should  be  so,  if  he  can.  I 
cannot.  Time  and  storm  beat  against  these 
inscriptions,  and  give  them  other  coloring,  — 
the  tints  of  years  and  weather  ;  but  while  the 
house  lasts  and  the  rock  holds  the  salutation 
lives.  In  most  other  matters,  the  force  of  re 
curring  experience  weakens  association.  He 
who  loves  cherishes  the  first  words  of  the  be 
loved  as  he  cherishes  her  last. 

The  situation  was  simple  enough :    an  in- 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  17 

jured  man  and  a  lovely  woman,  guests  of  the 
same  summer  hotel ;  a  slow  recovery ;  a  lei 
surely  sweet  acquaintance  ;  the  light  that 
never  was  on  hill  or  shore ;  and  so  the  charm 
was  wrought.  My  accident  held  me  a  prisoner 
for  six  weeks.  But  my  love  put  me  in  chains 
in  six  minutes. 

Her  name  was  Helen  ;  like  hers  of  old 

"  Who  fired  the  topmost  towers  of  Ilium." 

I  liked  the  stately  name  for  her,  for  she  was 
of  full  womanhood,  —  thirty-three  years  old ; 
the  age  at  which  the  French  connoisseur  said 
that  a  charming  woman  charmed  the  most. 

Upon  the  evening  before  we  parted,  I  ven 
tured  —  for  we  sat  at  the  sheltered  end  of  the 
piazza,  away  from  the  patterers  and  chatterers, 
a  little  by  ourselves  —  to  ask  her  a  brave  ques 
tion.  I  had  learned  that  one  might  ask  her 
anything ;  she  had  originality  ;  she  was  not 
of  thejfeminine  pattern  ;  she  had  110  paltriness 
nor  pettiness  in  her  thoughts ;  she  looked  out, 
as  men  do,  upon  a  subject  ;  not  down,  as 
women  are  wont.  She  was  a  woman  with 


18  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

w^om  a  man  could  converse.  He  need  not 
adapt  himself  and  conceal  himself,  and  play 
the  part  of  a  gallant  at  real  matters  which 
were  above  gallantry.  He  could  confide  in 
her.  Now  it  was  new  to  me  to  consider  that 
I  could  confide  in  any  person.  In  my  calling, 
one  becomes  such  a  receptacle  of  human  confi 
dence,  —  one  soaks  up  other  peoples'  lives  till 
one  becomes  a  great  sponge,  absorptive  and 
absorbing  forever,  as  sponges  should.  Who 
notices  when  the  useful  thins1  srets  too  full  ? 

O    O 

That  is  what  it  is  there  for.  Pour  on  —  scald 
ing  hot,  or  freezing  cold,  or  pure  or  foul  —  pour 
away.  If  one  day  it  refuses  to  absorb  any 
more,  and  lies  limp  and  valueless  —  why,  the 
Doctor  has  broken  down  ;  or  the  Doctor  is 
dead.  Who  ever  thought  anything  could  hap 
pen  to  the  Doctor  ?  One  thing  in  the  natural 
history  of  the  sponge  is  apt  to  be  overlooked. 
When  the  process  of  absorption  reaches  a  cer 
tain  point,  let  the  true  hand  touch  the  wearied 
thing,  and  grasp  it  in  the  right  way,  and  lo  ! 
back  rushes  the  instinct  of  confidence,  out^  not 
in. 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  19 

Something  of  this  sort  had  happened  to  me. 
The  novelty  of  real  acquaintance  with  a  woman 
who  did  not  need  me  had  an  effect  upon  me 
which  perhaps  few  outside  of  my  profession 
can  understand.  This  woman  truly  needed 
nothing  of  me.  She  had  not  so  much  as  a 
toothache  or  a  sore  throat.  If  she  had  cares 
or  troubles  they  were  her  own.  She  leaned 
upon  me  no  more  than  the  sunrise  did  upon 
the  mountain.  She  was  as  radiant,  as  health 
ful,  as  vivid,  and  as  calm  ;  she  surrounded  me, 
she  overflowed  me  like  the  color  of  the  air. 
Nay,  beyond  this  it  was  I  who  had  need ;  it 
was  she  who  ministered.  It  was  I  who  suffered 
the  whims  and  longings  of  weakness,  —  the 
thousand  little  cravings  of  the  sick  for  the 
well.  It  was  I  who  learned  to  know  that  I 
had  never  known  the  meaning  of  what  is  called 
"  diversion."  I  learned  to  suspect  that  I  had 
yet  to  learn  the  true  place  of  sympathy  in 
therapeutics.  I  learned,  in  short,  some  serious 
professional  lessons  which  were  the  simplest 
human  ones. 

But  the  question  that   I   spoke  of  was  on 


20  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

this  wise.  It  did  not  indeed  wear  the  form, 
but  she  gave  it  the  hospitality,  of  a  question. 

"  I  wish  I  knew,"  I  said,  "  why  you  have 
not  married.  I  wish  you  thought  me  worthy 
to  know." 

"  The  whole  world  might  know,''  she  an 
swered,  with  her  sweet  straightforward  look. 

"  And  I,  then,  as  the  most  unworthy  part 
of  it  ?  "  For  my  heart  sank  at  the  terms  upon 
which  I  was  admitted  to  the  answer. 

"  I  have  never  seen  any  man  whom  I  wished 
to  marry.  I  have  no  other  reason." 

"  Nor  I,"  I  said,  "  a  woman  "  —  And  there 
I  paused.  Yes,  precisely  there,  where  I  had 
not  meant  to ;  for  she  gave  me  a  large,  grave 
look,  upon  which  I  could  no  more  have  in 
truded  than  I  could  have  touched  her. 

This  was  in  September.  The  year  had 
made  the  longest  circuit  of  my  life  before  I 
gathered  the  courage  to  finish  that  sentence, 
broken  by  the  weight  of  a  delicate  look ;  be 
fore  I  dared  to  say  to  her  :  — 

"Nor  I  a  woman  —  until  now." 

I  hope  I  was  what  we  call  "  above  "  the 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  21 

petty  masculine  instinct  which  values  a  woman 
.who  is  hard  to  win  chiefly  for  that  circum 
stance.  Perhaps  I  was  not  as  I  thought  my 
self.  But  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  anguish 
of  wooing  in  doubt  overcame  all  paltry  sense 
of  pleasure  in  pursuit  of  my  delight.  My 
thoughts  of  her  moved  like  slow  travelers  up 
the  sides  of  a  mountain  of  snow.  That  other 
feeling  would  have  been  a  descent  to  me.  So 
wholly  did  she  rule  my  soul  —  how  could  I 
stoop  to  care  the  more  for  hers,  because  she 
was  beyond  my  reach  ? 

Be  this  as  it  may,  beyond  my  reach  for  yet 
another  year  she  did  remain.  Gently  as  she 
inclined  toward  me,  to  love  she  made  no  haste. 
The  force  of  my  feeling  was  so  great  at  times, 
it  seemed  incredible  that  hers  did  not  rush  to 
meet  me  like  part  of  the  same  incoming  wave 
broken  by  a  coast  island  and  joining  —  seem 
ingly  two,  but  in  reality  one  —  upon  the  shore 
ward  side.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life,  in 
that  rising  tide  of  my  great  love,  I  truly  knew 
humility.  My  unworthiness  of  her  was  more 
present  with  me  even  than  my  longing  for  her. 


22  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

If  I  could  have  scourged  my  soul  clear  of  all 
unfitness  for  her  as  our  Saviour  was  said  to 
have  scourged  the  tradesmen  out  of  the  Tem 
ple,  I  should  have  counted  myself  blessed, 
even  though  I  never  won  her ;  though  I  beat 
out  my  last  hope  of  her  with  the  very  blows 
which  I  inflicted  upon  myself. 

In  the  vibrations  of  my  strong  emotion  it 
used  to  surprise  me  that  my  will  was  such  a 
cripple  against  the  sensibilities  of  that  delicate 
creature.  I  was  a  man  of  as  much  will  as  was 
naturally  good  for  me  ;  and  my  training  had 
made  it  abnormal  like  a  prize-fighter's  bicep- 
ital  muscle.  People  of  my  profession  need 
some  counter-irritant,  which  they  seldom  get, 
to  the  habit  of  command.  To  be  the  ultimate 
control  for  a  clie?itele  of  a  thousand  people,  to 
enforce  the  personal  opinion  in  every  matter 
from  a  broken  constitution  to  a  broken  heart, 
deprives  a  man  of  the  usual  human  challenges 
to  an  athletic  will.  In  his  case,  if  ever,  motion 
follows  least  resistance.  His  will-power  grows 
by  a  species  of  pommeling ;  not  by  the  higher 
tactics  of  wrestling. 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  23 

But  I,  who  gave  the  fiat  on  which  life  or 
death  hung  poised  as  unhesitatingly  as  I  con 
trolled  the  fluctuations  of  an  influenza;  and 
I,  to  whom  the  pliability  of  the  feminine  will 
had  long  since  become  an  accepted  and  some 
what  elemental  fact,  like  the  nature  of  milk- 
toast  ;  I,  Dr.  Thorne,  who  had  the  habit  of  suc 
cess,  who  expected  to  make  his  point,  who  was 
accustomed  to  receive  obedience,  who  fought 
death  or  hysteria,  an  opposing  school  or  a 
tricky  patient,  with  equal  fidelity,  as  one  who 
pursues  the  avocation  of  life,  —  I  stood,  con 
quered  before  this  slender  woman  whose  eyes, 
like  the  sword  of  flame,  turned  this  way  and 
that,  guarding  the  barred  gates  of  the  only 
Eden  I  had  ever  chosen  to  enter. 

In  short,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life  I 
found  myself  a  suppliant ;  and  I  found  myself 
thus  and  there  for  the  sake  of  a  feeling. 

It  was  not  for  science'  sake,  it  was  not  for 
the  sake  of  personal  fame,  or  for  the  glory  of 
an  idea,  or  for  the  promulgation  of  a  discovery. 
I  had  not  been  overcome  upon  the  intellectual 
side  of  my  nature.  I  had  been  conquered  by 


24  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

an  emotion.  I  had  been  beaten  by  a  thing  for 
which,  all  my  life,  I  had  been  prescribing  as 
confidently  as  I  would  for  a  sprain.  Medical 
men  will  understand  me  and  some  others 
may,  when  I  say  that  I  experienced  surprise  to 
come  face  to  face  at  last,  and  in  this  unanswer 
able  personal  way,  with  an  invisible,  intangible 
power  of  the  soul  and  of  the  body,  which  could 
not  be  treated  as  "  a  symptom." 

I  loved  her.  That  was  enough,  and  beyond. 
I  loved  her.  That  was  the  beginning  and  end. 
I  loved  her.  I  found  nothing  in  the  Materia 
Medica  that  could  cure  the  fact.  I  loved  her. 
Science  gave  me  no  explanation  of  the  phe 
nomenon.  I  did  not  love  her  scientifically. 
I  loved  her  terribly. 

I  was  a  man  of  middle-age,  and  had  called 
myself  a  scientist  and  philosopher.  I  had 
thought,  if  ever,  to  love  soberly  and  philosophi 
cally.  Instead  of  that,  I  loved  as  poets  sing, 
as  artists  paint,  as  the  statues  look,  as  the 
great  romances  read,  as  ideals  teach,  —  as  the 
young  love. 

As  the  young  do?  Nay.  What  young 
creature  ever  loved  like  that  ? 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  25 

They  know  not  love  who  sip  it  at  the  spring. 
Youth  is  a  fragile  child  that  plays  at  love, 
Tosses  a  shell,  and  trims  a  little  sail, 
Mimics  the  passion  of  the  gathered  years, 
And  is  a  loiterer  on  the  shallow  bank 
Of  the  great  flood  that  we  have  waited  for. 

I  do  not  think  of  any  other  thing  which  a 
man  cannot  do  better  at  forty,  than  at  twenty. 
Why,  then,  should  he  not  the  better  love  ? 

My  lady  had  a  stately  soul ;  but  she  gave  it 
sweet  graciousness  and  little  womanly  appeals 
and  curves,  that  were  to  my  heart  as  the  touch 
of  her  hand  was  to  my  pulse.  I  was  so  happy 
in  her  presence  that  I  could  not  believe  I  had 
ever  been  sad ;  and  I  longed  so  for  he*  in  ab 
sence  that  I  could  scarcely  believe  I  had  be 
come  happy.  She  was  to  my  thoughts  as  the 
light  is  to  the  crystal.  She  came  into  my  life 
as  the  miracles  came  to  the  unbelieving.  She 
moved  through  my  days  and  through  my 
dreams,  as  the  rose-cloud  moved  upon  the 
mountain  sky.  She  floated  between  me  and 
my  sick.  She  hovered  above  me  and  my  dy 
ing.  She  was  a  mist  between  me  and  my 
books.  Once  when  I  took  the  knife  for  a  dan- 


26  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

gerous  operation,  the  steel  blade  caught  a  sun 
beam  and  flashed ;  and  I  looked  at  the  flash  — 
it  seemed  to  contain  a  new  world  —  and  I 
thought :  "  She  is  my  own.  I  am  a  happy 
man !  "  But  I  was  sorry  for  my  patient.  I 
was  not  rough  with  him.  And  the  operation 
succeeded. 

What  is  to  be  said  ?  I  loved  her.  Love  is 
like  faith.  He  who  has  it  understands  before 
you  speak.  But  to  him  who  has  it  not,  it  can 
not  be  explained. 

A  year  from  the  time  of  my  most  blessed 
accident  beside  the  trout-brook,  —  in  one  year 
and  two  months  from  that  day,  upon  a  warm 
and  wonderful  September  afternoon,  my  lady 
and  I  were  married,  and  I  brought  her  from 
her  mother's  house  to  the  mountain  village 
where  first  we  saw  each  other.  There  we 
spent  the  first  week  of  our  happiness.  It 
was  as  near  to  Eden  as  we  could  find.  The 
village  was  left  almost  to  its  own  rare  re 
sources  ;  the  summer  tourists  were  well-nigh 
gone  ;  the  peaceful  roads  gave  no  stare  of  intru 
sion  to  our  joy.  The  hills  looked  down  upon 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  27 

us  and  made  us  feel  how  high  love  was.  The 
forest  inclosed  us,  and  made  us  understand 
that  love  was  large.  The  holiness  of  beauty 
was  the  hostess  of  our  delight.  Oh,  I  had  won 
her !  She  was  my  wife.  She  was  my  own. 
She  loved  me. 

If  I  cherished  her  as  my  own  soul,  what 
could  I  give  her  back,  who  had  given  herself 
to  me  ? 

I  said,  "I  will  make  you  the  happiest  wo 
man  who  was  ever  beloved  by  man  upon  this 
earth." 

" But  you  have"  she  whispered,  lifting  her 
dear  face.  "  It  is  worth  being  alive  for",  if  it 
came  to  an  end  to-morrow." 

"Love  has  no  end,"  I  cried.  "  Happiness  is 
life.  It  cannot  die.  It  has  an  immortal  soul. 
If  ever  I  make  you  sad,  if  I  am  untender  to 
you,  —  may  God  strike  me  "  — 

"  Hush,"  she  cried,  clinging  to  me,  and 
closing  my  lips  with  a  kiss  for  which  I  would 
have  died ;  "  Hush,  love  !  hush  !  " 


CHAPTER  III. 

IT  ought  to  be  said,  at  this  point  in  my 
story,  that  I  had  never  been  what  would  be 
called  an  even-tempered  man.  Truth  to  tell, 
I  was  a  spoiled  boy.  My  mother  was  a  saint, 
but  she  was  a  soft-hearted  one.  My  father 
was  a  scholar.  Like  many  another  boy  of 
decided  individuality,  I  came  up  anyhow. 
Nobody  managed  me.  At  an  early  age  my 
profession  made  it  my  duty  to  manage  every 
body  else.  I  had  a  nervous  temperament  to 
start  on;  neither  my  training  nor  my  occu 
pation  had  poised  it.  I  do  not  think  I  was 
malicious  nor  even  ill-natured.  As  men  go, 
I  was  perhaps  a  kind  man.  The  thing  which 
I  am  trying  to  say  is,  that  I  was  an  irritable 
one. 

As  I  look  back  upon  the  whole  subject  I 
can  see,  from  my  present  point  of  view,  that 
this  irritability  had  seldom  struck  me  as  a 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  29 

personal  disadvantage.  I  do  not  think  it 
usually  makes  that  impression  upon  tempera 
ments  similarly  vitiated.  As  nearly  as  I  can 
remember,  I  thought  of  myself  rather  as  the 
possessor  of  an  eccentricity,  than  as  the  victim 
of  a  vice.  My  father  was  an  overworked 
college  professor,  —  a  quick-tempered  man  ; 
my  mother,  —  so  he  told  me  with  streaming 
tears,  upon  the  day  that  he  buried  her,  —  my 
mother  never  spoke  one  irritated  word  to  him 
in  all  her  life :  he  had  chafed  and  she  had 
soothed,  he  had  slashed  and  she  had  healed, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  their  days 
together.  A  boy  imitates  for  so  many  years 
before  he  reflects,  that  the  liberty  to  say  what 
one  felt  like  saying  appeared  to  me  a  mere 
identification  of  sex  long  before  it  occurred  to 
me  that  mine  might  not  be  the  only  sex  en 
dowed  by  nature  with  this  form  of  expression. 
I  regarded  it  as  one  regards  a  beard,  or  a 
waistcoat,  —  simple  signs  of  the  variation  of 
species. 

My  mother  —  Heaven  rest  her  sweet  soul  — • 
did  not,  that  I  recall,  obviously  oppose  nie  in 


30  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

this  view.  After  the  time  of  the  first  mous 
tache  she  obeyed  her  son,  as  she  had  obeyed 
her  husband. 

As  has  been  already  said,  the  profession  to 
which  I  fell  heir  failed  to  recommend  to  me 
a  different  personal  attitude  toward  the  will  of 
others.  My  sick  people  were  my  pawns  upon 
the  chess-board  of  life.  I  played  my  game 
with  humane  intentions,  not  wholly,  I  believe, 
with  selfish  ones.  But  I  suffered  the  military 
dangers  of  character,  without  the  military 
apologies  for  them.  He  whose  duty  to  God 
and  men  requires  him  to  command  all  with 
whom  he  comes  in  contact  should  pray  God, 
and  not  expect  men,  to  have  mercy  on  his 
soul. 

It  is  possible,  I  do  not  deny,  that  I  put  this 
view  of  the  case  without  what  literary  critics 
call  "the  light  touch."  It  is  quite  possible 
that  I  emphasize  it.  Circumstances  have 
made  this  natural ;  and  if  I  need  any  excuse 
for  it  I  must  seek  it  in  them.  Whether  liter 
ary  or  not,  it  is  not  human  to  cherish  a  light 
view  of  a  heavy  experience. 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  31 

I  loved  my  wife.  This  I  think,  I  have 
sufficiently  made  plain.  I  loved  her  as  I 
might  have  discovered  a  new  world  ;  and  I 
tried  to  express  this  fact,  as  I  should  have 
learned  a  new,  unworldly  language.  I  could 
no  more  have  spoken  unkindly  to  her  than  I 
could  vivisect  a  humming-bird.  I  obeyed  her 
lightest  look  as  if  she  had  given  me  an  anaes 
thetic.  Her  love  intoxicated  me.  I  seemed 
to  be  the  first  lover  who  had  ever  used  this 
phrase.  My  heart  originated  it,  with  a  sense 
of  surprise  at  my  own  imaginative  quality.  I 
was  chloroformed  with  joy.  Oh,  I  loved  her ! 
I  return  to  that.  I  find  I  can  say  noth 
ing  beyond  it.  I  loved  her  as  other  people 
love,  —  patients,  and  uninstructed  persons.  I, 
Esmerald  Thorne,  President  of  the  State 
Medical  Society,  and  Foreign  Correspondent 
of  the  National  Evolutionary  Association,  for 
ty-six  years  old,  and  ^Darwinian,  —  I  loved 
my  wife  like  any  common,  ardent,  unscientific 
fellow. 

It  is  easy  to  toss  words  and  a  smile  at  it  all, 
now.  There  have  been  times  when  either 


32  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

would  have  been  impossible  from  very  heart 
break.  There,  again,  is  another  of  the  phrases 
to  which  experience  has  been  my  only  vocabu 
lary.  My  patients  used  to  talk  to  me  about 
their  broken  hearts.  I  took  the  temperature 
and  wrote  a  prescription.  I  added  that  she 
would  be  better  to-morrow ;  I  would  call  again 
in  a  week.  I  assured  her  that  I  understood 
the  case.  I  was  as  well  fitted  to  diagnose  the 
diseases  of  the  Queen  of  some  purple  planet 
which  the  telescope  has  not  yet  given  to  as 
tronomy. 

I  have  said  that  I  found  it  impossible  to 
be  irritable  to  my  dear  wife.  I  cannot  tell 
the  precise  time  when  it  became  possible. 
When  does  the  dawn  become  the  day  upon 
the  summer  sky  ?  When  does  the  high  tide 
begin  to  turn  beneath  the  August  moon  ? 
Rather,  I  might  say,  when  does  the  blue  be 
come  the  violet,  within  the  prism?  Did  I 
love  her  the  less,  because  the  distance  of  the 
worshiper  had  dwindled  to  the  lover's  clasp  ? 

I  could  have  shot  the  scoffer  who  told  me 
so.  What  then  ?  What  shall  I  call  that  dif- 


TUB   GATES  BETWEEN.  33 

ference  with  which  the  man's  love  differs 
when  he  has  won  the  woman?  Had  the 
miracle  gone  out  of  it  ?  God  forbid. 

O 

It  was  no  longer  the  marvel  of  the  fire 
come  down  from  heaven  to  smite  the  altar. 
It  was  the  comfortable  miracle  of  the  daily 
manna.  Had  my  goddess  departed  from  her 
divinity,  my  queen  from  her  throne,  my  star 
from  her  heaven  ?  Rather,  in  becomin£_mine 
she  had  become  myself,  and  if  there  were 
a  loss,  that  loss  was  in  my  own  nature.  I 
should  have  risen  by  reason  of  hers.  If  I  de 
scended,  it  was  by  force  of  my  own  gravitation. 
Her  wing  was  too  light  to  carry  me. 

It  is  easier  to  philosophize  about  these  things 
than  it  is  to  record  them  in  cold  fact.  With 
shame  and  sorrow  do  I  say  it,  but  say  it  I  must : 
My  love  went  the  way  of  the  love  of  other  men 
who  feel  (this  was  and  remains  the  truth)  far 
less  than  I.  I,  who  had  believed  myself  to 
love  like  no  other  before  me,  and  none  to  come 
after  me,  and  I,  who  had  won  the  dearest 
woman  in  all  the  world  —  I  stooped  to  suffer 
myself  to  grow  used  to  my  blessedness,  like 


34  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

any  low  man  who  was  incapable  of  winning 
or  of  wearing  it. 

It  cannot  be  said,  it  shall  not  be  said,  that 
I  loved  my  wife  less  than  the  day  I  married 
her.  It  must  be  written  that  I  became  accus 
tomed  to  my  happiness. 

That  ideal  of  myself,  which  my  ideal  of  her 
created  in  me,  and  which  no  emergency  of  fate 
could  have  shaken,  slipped  in  the  old,  fatal 
quicksand  of  use.  Our  ideal  of  ourselves  is  to 
our  highest  life  like  the  heart  to  the  pulsation. 
It  is  the  divinest  art  of  the  love  of  woman  for 
man  that  she  clasps  him  to  his  vision  of  him 
self,  as  breath  and  being  are  held  together. 

Until  the  time  mentioned  at  the  beginning 
of  my  narrative,  I  had  in  no  sense  appreciated 
the  state  of  the  case,  as  it  lay  between  my 
ideal  and  my  fact.  That  I  had  been  more  or 
less  impatient  of  speech  in  my  own  home  for 
some  time  past,  is  probably  true.  The  ungov- 
erned  lip  is  a  terrible  master ;  and  I  had  been 
a  slave  too  long.  I  was  in  the  habit  of  finding 
fault  with  my  patients.  I  was  accustomed  to 
be  what  we  call  "  quick "  with  servants. 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  35 

Neither  had,  I  thought,  as  a  rule,  seemed  to 
care  the  less  for  me  on  this  account.  If  I 
lost  a  patient  or  a  coachman  now  and  then,  I 
could  afford  to.  The  item  did  not  trouble  me. 
I  was  inconsiderate  at  times  with  personal 
friends.  They  said,  It  is  his  way,  and  bore 
with  me.  People  usually  bore  with  me  ;  they 
always  had.  I  looked  upon  this  as  one  of  the 
rights  of  temperament,  so  far  as  I  looked  upon 
it  at  all.  I  do  not  think  this  indulgence  had 
occurred  to  me  as  other  than  a  tribute.  It  is 
common  enough  in  dealing  with  men  of  my 
sort.  (And  alas,  there  are  enough  of  my 
sort ;  I  must  be  looked  upon  rather  as 'a  type 
than  a  specimen.)  Such  indulgence  is  a 
movement  of  self-defense,  or  else  of  philoso 
phy,  upon  the  part  of  those  who  come  in  con 
tact  with  us.  To  this  view  of  the  subject  I 
had  given  no  attention. 

I  had  lived  to  be  almost  fifty  years  old,  and 
no  person  had  ever  said  to  me  :  "  Esmerald 
Thome,  you  trust  your  attractive  qualities  too 
far.  Power  and  charm  do  not  give  a  man  a 
permit  to  be  disagreeable.  Your  temperament 


36  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

does  not  release  you  from  the  commonplace 
human  duty  of  self-restraint.  A  gentleman 
has  no  more  right  to  get  uncontrollably  angry 
than  he  has  to  get  drunk.  The  patience  with 
which  others  receive  you  is  not  a  testimony  to 
your  strength ;  it  is  a  concession  to  your  weak 
ness.  You  are  living  upon  concessions  like 
disease,  or  childhood,  or  age." 

No  one  had  said  this  —  surely  not  my  wife. 
I  can  recall  an  expression  of  bewilderment  at 
times  upon  her  beautiful  face,  which  for  the 
moment  perplexed  me.  After  I  had  gone  out, 
I  would  remember  that  I  had  been  nervous  in 
my  manner.  I  do  not  think  I  had  ever  spoken 
with  actual  roughness  to  her,  until  this  day  of 
which  I  write.  That  I  had  been  sometimes 
cross  enough,  is  undoubtedly  the  case. 

On  that  November  day  I  had  been  over 
worked.  This  was  no  novelty,  and  I  offer  it 
as  no  excuse.  I  had  been  up  for  two  nights 
with  a  dangerous  case.  I  had  another  in  the 
suburbs,  and  a  consultation  out  of  town.  There 
was  a  quarrel  at  the  hospital,  and  a  panic  in 
Stock  Street.  I  had  seen  sixty  patients  that 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  37 

day.  I  had  been  attacked  in  the  "  Thera 
peutic  Quarterly  "  upon  my  famous  theory  of 
Antisepsis.  Perhaps  I  may  add  the  circum 
stance  that  my  baby  was  teething. 

This  was,  naturally,  less  important  to  me 
than  to  his  mother,  who  thought  the  child  was 
ill.  I  knew  better,  and  it  annoyed  me  that 
my  knowledge  did  not  remove  her  apprehen 
sion.  In  point  of  fact,  he  had  cried  at  night 
for  a  week  or  two,  more  than  he  ought  to  have 
done.  She  could  not  understand  why  I  denied 
him  a  Dover's  powder.  I  needed  sleep,  and 
could  not  get  it.  We  were  both  worn,  and 
—  I  might  fill  my  chapter  to  the  brim  with 
the  little  reasons  for  my  great  error.  Let  it 
suffice  that  they  were  small  and  that  it  was 
large. 

We  had  been  married  three  years,  and  our 
boy  was  a  year  old.  He  was  a  fine  fellow. 
Helen  lost  her  Greek  look  and  took  on  the 
Madonna  expression  after  he  was  born.  Any 
woman  who  is  fit  to  be  a  mother  gains  that 
expression  with  her  first  child.  My  wife  was 
a  very  happy  mother. 


38  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

She  was  sitting  in  the  library  when  I  came 
in  that  evening.  It  was  a  warm,  red  library, 
with  heavy  curtains  and  an  open  fire  —  a  deep 
room  that  absorbed  color.  I  fancied  the  room, 
and  it  was  my  wife's  pleasure  to  await  me  in 
it  with  the  child  each  evening  at  the  earliest 
hour  when  I  might  by  any  chance  be  expected 
home.  She  possessed  to  the  full  the  terrible 
power  of  waiting  which  women  have.  She 
could  do  nothing  when  she  expected  me.  Al 
though  three  years  married,  she  could  not 
read,  or  write,  or  p]ay  when  she  was  listen 
ing  for  my  step.  I  do  not  mean  that  she  told 
me  this.  I  found  it  out.  She  never  called 
my  attention  to  such  little  feminine  weak 
nesses.  She  was  never  over-fond.  My  wife 
had  a  noble  reserve.  I  had  never  seen  the 
hour  when  I  felt  that  her  tenderness  was  a 
treasure  to  be  lightly  had,  or  indifferently 
treated. 

It  should  be  said  that  the  library  opened 
from  the  parlors,  and  was  at  that  time  sepa 
rated  from  them  by  a  heavy  portiere  of  crim 
son  stuff,  the  doors  not  being  drawn.  This 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  39 

drapery  she  was  in  the  habit  of  folding  apart 
at  the  hours  of  my  probable  return,  and  as  I 
came  through  the  long   parlors  my  eyes  had 
the  first  greeting  of  her,  before  my  voice  or 
arms.     Upon  this  evening,  as  upon  others,  I 
entered  by  the  parlor  door,  and  came  —  more 
quickly  than  usual  —  toward  the  library.     I 
was  in  a  great  hurry ;  one  of  the  acute  attacks 
of  the  chronic  condition  which  besets  the  busy 
doctor.     As  I  crossed  the  length  of  the  thick 
carpet,  the  rooms  shook  beneath  my  tread ;  I 
burst  into,  rather  than  entered,  the  library,  — 
not  seeing  her,  I  think,  or  not  pausing  to  see 
her,  in  the  accustomed  manner.     Wh6n  I  had 
come  to  her  I  found  that  the  child  was  not 
with  her,  as  usual.     She  was  sitting  alone  by 
the  library  table  under  the  drop-light,  which 
held  a  shade  of  red  lace.     She  had  a  gown  of 
white  wool  trimmed  with  ermine ;  a  costume   j 
which  gave  me  pleasure,  and  which  she  wore  I 
upon  cool  evenings,  not  too  often  for  me  to  I 
weary  of  it.     She  regarded  my  taste  in  dress  / 
as  delicately  and  as   delightedly  as   she  did  I 
every  other  wish  or  will  of  mine. 


40  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

She  had  been  trying  to  read ;  but  the  mag 
azine  lay  closed  upon  her  knee  below  her  folded 
hands.  Her  face  wore  an  anxious  look  as  she 
turned  the  fine  contours  of  her  head  toward 
me. 

"  Oh,"  she  cried,  "at  last!" 

She  moved  to  reach  me,  swiftly,  murmuring 
something  which  I  did  not  hear,  or  to  which  I 
did  not  attend ;  and  under  the  crimson  cur 
tains  met  me,  warm  and  dear  and  white,  put 
ting  up  her  sweet  arms. 

I  kissed  her  carelessly  —  would  to  God  that 
I  could  forget  it !  I  kissed  her  as  if  it  did  not 
matter  much,  and  said  :  — 

"  Helen,  I  must  have  my  dinner  this  in 
stant  ! " 

"  Why,  surely,"  she  said,  retreating  from  me 
with  a  little  shock  of  pained  surprise.  "It  is 
all  ready,  Esmerald.  I  will  ring." 

She  melted  from  my  arms.  Oh,  if  I  had 
known,  if  I  had  known!  She  stirred  and 
slipped  and  was  gone  from  me,  and  I  stood 
stupidly  looking  at  her;  her  figure,  against 
the  tall,  full  book-cases,  shone  mistily,  while 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  41 

she  touched  the  old-fashioned  bell-rope  of  gold 
cord. 

"  Keally,  I  had  n't  time  to  come  home  at 
all,"  I  added  testily.  "  I  am  driven  to  death. 
I  've  got  to  go  again  in  ten  minutes.  But  I 
supposed  you  would  worry  if  I  did  n't  show 
myself.  It  is  a  foolish  waste  of  time.  I  don't 
know  how  I  am  ever  going  to  get  through.  I 
wish  I  had  n't  come." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SHE  changed  color  —  from  fair  to  flush, 
from  red  to  white  again  —  and  her  hand  upon 
the  gold  cord  trembled.  I  remembered  it  af 
terward,  though  I  was  not  conscious  of  noticing 
it  at  the  time. 

"  You  need  not,"  she  replied,  in  her  low, 
controlled  voice,  "  on  my  account.  You  need 
never  come  again." 

"It  is  easier  to  come,"  I  answered,  irritably, 
"  than  to  know  that  you  sit  here  making  your 
self  miserable  because  I  don't." 

"  Have  I  ever  fretted  you  about  coming, 
Esmerald  ?  I  did  not  know  it." 

"  It  would  be  easier  if  you  did  fret ! "  I 
cried  crossly.  "  I  'd  rather  you  'd  say  a  thing 
than  look  it.  Any  man  would." 

Indeed,  it  would  have  been  a  paltry  satisfac 
tion  to  me  just  then  if  I  could  have  found  her 
to  blame.  Her  blamelessness  irritated  my 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  43 

self-complacence  as  the  light  irritates  defective 
eyes. 

"  I  am  due  at  the  hospital  in  twenty-two 
minutes,"  I  went  on,  excitedly.  "  Chimgeon 
is  behaving  like  Apollyon.  If  I  'm  not  there 
to  handle  him,  nobody  will.  The  whole  staff 
are  afraid  of  him  —  everybody  but  me.  We 
shan't  get  the  new  ward  built  these  two  years 
if  he  carries  the  day  to-night.  I  've  got  a  con 
sultation  at  Decker's  —  the  old  lady  is  dying. 
It 's  no  sort  of  use  dragging  a  tired  man  out 
there  ;  I  can't  do  her  any  good  ;  but  they  will 
have  it.  I  'm  at  the  beck  and  call  of  every 
whim.  Is  n't  that  dinner  ready  ?  I  wish  I 
had  time  to  change  my  boots  !  They  are  wet 
through.  My  head  aches  horribly.  Brake 
telegraphed  me  to  get  down  to  Stock  Street 
before  two  o'clock  to  save  what  is  left  of  that 
Santa  Ma  stock.  I  could  n't  go.  I  had  an 
enormous  office  —  forty  people.  I  've  lost  ten 
thousand  dollars  in  this  panic.  I  've  got  to 
see  Brake  on  my  way  to  Decker's.  I  lost  a 
patient  this  morning  —  that  little  girl  of  the 
Harrowhart's.  She  was  a  poor  little  scrofulous 


44  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

thing.  But  they  are  terribly  cut  up  about  it. 
.  .  .  Chowder  ?  I  wish  you  'd  had  a  good 
clear  soup.  I  don't  feel  as  if  I  could  touch 
chowder.  I  hope  you  have  some  roast  beef, 
better  than  the  last.  You  must  n't  let  Parsnip 
cheat  you.  Quail  ?  There 's  no  nourishment 
in  a  quail  for  a  man  in  my  state.  The  gas 
leaks.  Can't  you  have  it  attended  to  ?  Hurry 
up  the  coffee.  I  must  swallow  it  and  go.  I  've 
got  more  than  ten  men  could  do." 

"It  is  more  than  one  woman  can  do  "  — 
she  began  gently,  when  I  came  to  the  end  of 
this  outbreak  and  my  breath  together. 

"  What  did  you  say  ?     Do  speak  louder !  " 

"  I  said  it  seems  to  be  more  than  one  woman 
can  do,  to  rest  you." 

"  Yes,"  I  said  carelessly,  "  it  is.  You  can't 
do  the  first  thing  for  me,  except  to  do  me  the 
goodness  to  ring  for  a  decent  cup  of  coffee. 
I  can't  drink  this." 

"Esmerald"  — 

"Oh,  what?  I  can't  stop  to  talk.  There, 
I  've  burned  my  tongue,  now.  If  there  's  any 
thing  I  can't  stand,  it  is  going  to  a  consultation 
with  a  burned  tongue." 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  45 

"  How  tired  you  are,  Esmerald !  I  was 
only  going  to  say  that  I  am  sorry.  I  can't  let 
you  go  without  saying  that." 

"  I  can't  see  that  it  helps  it  any.  I  am  so 
tired  I  don't  want  to  be  touched.  Never  mind 
my  coat.  I  '11  put  it  on  myself.  Tell  Joe  — 
no.  I  left  the  horse  standing.  I  don't  want 
Joe.  I  suppose  Donna  is  uneasy  by  this  time. 
She  won't  stand  at  night  —  she 's  got  to.  I  '11 
get  that  whim  out  of  her.  Now,  don't  look 
that  way.  The  horse  is  safe  enough.  Don't 
you  suppose  I  know  how  to  drive  ?  You  're 
always  having  opinions  of  your  own  against 
mine.  There.  I  must  be  off." 

"  Where 's  the  baby,  Helen  ?  "  I  turned,  with 
my  hand  upon  the  latch  of  my  heavy  oaken 
door,  and  jerked  the  question  out,  as  cross 
men  do. 

"  The  baby  is  n't  just  right,  somehow,  Es 
merald.  I  hated  to  bother  you,  for  you  never 
think  it  is  anything.  I  dare  say  he  will  be 
better,  but  I  thought  I  would  n't  let  him  come 
out  of  the  nursery.  Jane  is  with  him.  I  Ve 
been  a  little  troubled  about  him.  He  has 
cried  all  the  afternoon." 


46  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

"  He  cries  because  you  coddle  him  !  "  I  ex 
ploded.  "  It  is  all  nonsense,  Helen.  Nothing 
ails  the  child.  I  won't  encourage  this  sort  of 
thing.  I  '11  see  him  when  I  come  home.  I 
can't  possibly  wait  —  I  am  driven  to  death  — 
for  every  little  whim  " 

But  at  the  door  I  stopped.  If  the  baby 
had  been  a  patient  he  would  have  seen  no 
doctor  that  night.  But  the  father  in  me  got 
the  better  of  me,  and  without  a  word  further 
to  my  wife  I  ran  up  to  the  nursery. 

She  stayed  below;  she  perceived  (Helen 
was  always  quick),  although  I  had  not  said  so, 
that  I  did  not  wish  her  to  follow  me.  I  ex 
amined  the  child  hastily.  The  little  fellow 
stopped  crying  at  the  sight  of  me,  and  put  up 
both  arms  to  be  taken.  I  said  :  — 

"  No,  Boy.  Papa  can't  stop  now,"  and 
put  him  gently  back  into  his  crib.  When  I 
had  reached  the  nursery  door  I  remember 
that  I  returned  and  kissed  him.  I  was  very 
angry,  but  I  could  not  be  angry  with  my  baby. 
With  the  touch  of  his  little  lips  dewy  and 
sweet,  upon  mine,  I  rushed  down  to  my  wife, 
and  tempestuously  began  again  :  — 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  47 

"  Helen,  I  must  have  an  end  to  this  nonsense. 
Nothing  ails  the  baby ;  he  is  only  a  trifle 
feverish  with  a  new  tooth.  It  really  is  very 
unpleasant  to  me  that  you  make  such  a  fuss 
over  him.  If  you  had  married  a  green-grocer  it 
might  have  been  pardonable.  Pray  remember 
that  you  have  married  a  physician  who  under 
stands  his  business,  and  do  leave  me  to  manage 
it.  Take  the  child  out  of  the  nursery.  Carry 
him  down-stairs  as  usual  for  a  few  minutes. 
He  will  sleep  better.  There !  I  'm  eight 
minutes  behindhand  already,  all  for  this 
senseless  anxiety  of  yours.  It  is  a  pity  you 
can't  trust  me,  like  other  men's  wives !  I  wish 
I  'd  married  a  woman  with  a  little  wifely 
spirit !  —  or  else  not  married  at  all." 

I  shut  the  door ;  I  am  afraid  I  slammed  it. 
I  cleared  the  steps  at  a  bound,  and  ran  fiercely 
out  into  the  night  air.  The  wind  was  rising, 
and  the  weather  was  growing  sharp.  It  was 
frosty  and  noisy.  Donna,  my  chestnut  mare, 
stood  pawing  the  pavement  in  high  temper,  and 
called  to  me  as  she  heard  my  step.  She 
had  dragged  at  her  weight  a  little;  she  was 


48  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

thoroughly  displeased  with  the  delay.  It  oc 
curred  to  me  that  she  felt  as  1  had  acted.  It 
even  occurred  to  me  to  go  back  and  tell  my 
wife  that  I  was  ashamed  of  myself. 

I  turned  and  looked  in  through  the  parlor 
windows.  The  shades  were  up,  and  the  gas 
was  low.  Dimly  beyond,  the  bright  panel  of 
the  lighted  library  arose  between  the  crimson 
curtains.  She  stood  against  it,  midway  be 
tween  the  two  rooms.  Her  hands  had  dropped 
closed  one  into  the  other  before  her.  Her  face 
was  toward  the  street.  She  seemed  to  be 
gazing  at  me,  whom  she  could  not  see.  Her 
white  dress,  which  hung  in  thick  folds,  the 
pallor  of  her  face  and  her  delicate  hands,  gave 
her  the  look  of  a  statue  ;  its  purity,  and  to 
my  fancy  at  that  moment  its  permanence.  She 
seemed  to  be  carved  there,  like  something  that 
must  stay. 

I  turned  to  go  back  —  yes,  I  would  have 
gone.  It  is  little  enough  for  a  man  to  say  for 
himself  under  circumstances  like  these ;  but 
perhaps  I  may  be  allowed  to  say  it,  since  to 
exculpate  myself  is  the  last  of  my  motives. 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  49 

I  had  made  a  step  or  two  up  the  flagging 
between  the  deep  grass-plots  that  fronted  the 
house,  when  the  mare,  disturbed  beyond  endu 
rance  at  a  movement  of  delay  which  she  too 
well  understood,  gave  a  shrill  whinny,  and 
reared,  pulling  and  dragging  at  her  weight 
fiercely.  She  was  a  powerful  creature,  and  the 
weight  yielded,  hitting  at  her  heels.  In  an  in 
stant  she  had  cramped  the  wheels,  and  I  saw 
that  the  buggy  would  go  over.  To  spring  back, 
reach  the  bit,  snatch  the  reins,  leap  over  the 
wheel,  and  whirl  away  in  the  reeling  carriage 
was  the  work  of  something  less  than  a  thought ; 
it  was  the  elemental  instinct  by  which  a  man 
must  manage  his  horse,  come  life  or  death. 

Like  most  doctors,  I  was  something  of  a 
horseman,  and  the  idea  of  being  thwarted  by 
any  of  Donna's  whims  had  never  occurred  to 
me.  I  knew  that  the  horse  was  pulling  hard, 
but  beyond  that,  I  could  not  be  said  to  have 
knowledge,  much  less  fear;  the  mad  conflict 
between  the  brute  and  the  man  possessed  me 
to  the  exclusion  of  intelligence. 

It  was  some  moments  before  it  struck  me 


50  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

that  my  own  horse  was  running  away  with 
nie. 

My  first,  perhaps  I  may  say  my  only  emotion 
at  the  discovery  was  one  of  overpowering 
rage. 

I  did  not  mean  to  strike  her.  No  driver, 
even  if  an  angry  one,  would  have  done  that. 
But  I  had  the  whip  in  my  hand,  around  which 
the  reins  were  knotted  for  the  struggle,  and 
when  the  horse  broke  into  a  gallop  the  jerk  gave 
her  a  flick.  I  was  not  in  the  habit  of  whipping 
her.  She  felt  herself  insulted.  It  was  now 
her  turn  to  be  angry ;  and  an  angry  runaway 
means  a  bad  business.  Donna  put  down  her 
head,  struck  out  viciously  from  behind,  and 
kicked  the  dasher  flat.  From  that  moment  I 
lost  all  control  of  her. 

I  thought :  — 

u  She  is  headed  down  town.  At  this  rate, 
in  five  minutes  she  will  be  in  the  thick  of 
travel.  I  have  so  many  minutes  more." 

For  how  long  I  cannot  tell,  I  had  beyond  this 
no  other  intelligent  idea.  Then  I  thought :  — 

"  I  should  not  like  to  be  the  man  who  has 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  51 

got  to  tell  Helen."  This  repeated  itself  dully : 
"  I  should  not  care  to  be  the  fellow  who  will 
be  sent  to  tell  Helen." 

I  had  ceased  to  call  to  the  mare;  it  only 
made  matters  worse ;  but  there  was  great 
hubbub  in  the  streets  as  we  leaped  on.  There 
were  several  attempts  to  head  her  off,  I  think. 
One  man  caught  at  her  bridle.  This  fright 
ened  her ;  she  threw  him  off,  and  threw  him 
down.  I  think  she  must  have  hurt  him.  We 
were  now  well  down  town.  Window  lights 
and  carriage  lights  flared  by  deliriously.  The 
wind,  which  was  high,  at  speed  like  that 
seemed  something  demoniac.  I  remember  how 
much  it  added  to  my  sense  of  danger.  I  re 
member  that  my  favorite  phrase  occurred  to 
me :  — 

"7  am  driven  to  death." 

Suddenly  I  saw  approaching  an  open  lan 
dau.  The  street  was  full  of  vehicles,  some 
of  which  I  was  sure  to  run  down ;  but  none  of 
them  seemed  to  give  me  concern  except  this 
one  carriage.  It  contained  a  lady  and  a  little 
boy,  patients  of  mine.  I  recognized  them 


52  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

forty  feet  away.  He  was  a  pretty  little 
fellow,  and  she  was  fond  of  me  ;  sent  for  me 
for  everything  ;  trusted  me  beyond  reason  ; 
could  not  live  without  her  doctor  —  that  kind 
of  patient.  She  had  been  a  great  sufferer. 
It  seemed  infernal  to  me  that  it  should  be 
they. 

I  shouted  to  her  coachman  :  — 

"Henry!      For  God's  sake  —  to   the  left! 


But  Henry  stared  at  me  like  one  struck 
dead.  I  thought  I  heard  him  say  :  — 

"  Mann,  it  's  the  doctor  !  "  and  after  that  I 
heard  no  more. 

As  the  crash  came,  I  saw  the  woman's 
face.  She  had  recognized  me  with  her  look  of 
sweet  trustfulness  ;  it  froze  to  mortal  horror. 
She  clasped  the  child.  I  saw  his  cap  come 
off  from  his  yellow  curls,  and  one  little  hand 
tossed  out  as  the  landau  went  over. 

The  mare,  now  mad  as  any  maniac,  ran  on. 

Something  had  broken,  but  it  mattered  little 
what.  I  think  we  turned  a  corner.  I  think 
she  struck  a  lamp-post  or  a  tree.  At  all 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  53 

events,  the  buggy  went  over;  and,  scooped 
into  the  top,  and  dragged,  and  blinded,  and 
stunned,  I  came  to  the  ground. 

As  I  went  down,  I  uttered  the  two  words 
of  all  that  are  human,  most  solemn ;  perhaps, 
one  may  add,  most  automatic.  Believer  or 
skeptic,  saint  or  sinner,  we  find  that  mortal 
danger  hurls  them  from  us,  as  it  wrests  the 
soul  from  out  our  bodies. 

I  said,  "  My  God ! "  precisely  as  I  threw 
out  my  arms,  to  catch  at  whatever  could  hold 
me  when  I  could  no  longer  hold  myself. 


CHAPTER  V. 

How  long  I  had  lain  stunned  upon  the 
pavement  I  had  no  means  of  knowing;  I 
thought  not  long.  I  was  surprised,  on  coming 
to  myself,  to  find  that  my  injuries  were  not 
more  severe. 

My  head  felt  uncomfortable,  and  I  had  a 
certain  numbness  or  stiffness,  as  one  does  from 
the  first  trial  of  long-disused  limbs.  I  had 
always  limped  a  trifle  since  that  accident  be 
side  the  trout-brook ;  and,  as  I  staggered  to 
my  feet,  I  thought :  — 

"  This  will  play  the  mischief  with  that  old 
injury.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  it  came  to 
crutches." 

On  the  contrary,  when  I  had  walked  some 
dozen  steps  I  found  that  an  interesting  thing- 
had  happened.  The  shock  had  dispersed  the 
limp. 

It  was  with  a  perfectly  even  and  natural 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  55 

gait,  although,  as  I  say,  rather  a  weak  one, 
that  I  trod  the  pavement  to  try  what  manner 
of  man  the  runaway  had  left  me.  I  said :  — 

"  It  is  one  of  those  cases  of  nervous  re 
arrangement.  The  shock  has  acted  like  a 
battery  upon  the  nerve-centres.  Instead  of 
a  broken  neck,  I  have  a  cured  leg.  I  'm  a 
lucky  fellow." 

Having  already,  however,  considered  myself 
a  lucky  fellow  for  the  greater  part  of  my  life, 
this  conclusion  did  not  impress  me  with  the 
force  which  it  might  some  other  men ;  and, 
laughing  lightly,  as  lucky  people  do,  at  for 
tune,  I  turned  to  examine  the  condition  of  my 
horse  and  carriage. 

Donna  was  not  to  be  seen.  She  had  broken 
the  traces,  the  breeching,  the  shafts,  every 
thing,  in  short,  she  could,  and  cleared  herself. 
I  had  been  unconscious  long  enough  to  give 
her  time  to  make  herself  invisible,  and  she 
had  made  the  most  of  it ;  in  what  direction 
she  had  gone,  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  tell. 
The  buggy  was  a  wreck.  No  one  was  in  sight 
who  seemed  to  have  interest  or  anxiety  in  the 


56  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

matter.  I  wondered  that  I  did  not  find  my 
self  the  victim  of  a  gaping  crowd.  But  I 
reflected  that  the  mishap  had  taken  place  in 
a  quiet  dwelling  street,  not  traveled  at  that 
hour,  and  that  my  fate,  therefore,  had  attracted 
no  attention.  I  remembered,  too,  my  patient, 
Mrs.  Faith,  and  her  boy,  and  that  dolt  of  a 
Henry's  helpless  face  —  the  whole  thing  came 
to  mind,  vividly.  It  occurred  to  me  that  the 
crowd  might  be  at  the  scene  of  an  accident 
so  terrible  that  no  loafer  was  left  to  regard 
my  lesser  misfortune.  It  was  they  who  had 
been  sacrificed.  It  was  I  who  escaped. 

My  first  thought  was  to  go  at  once  and 
learn  the  worst ;  but  I  found  myself  a  little 
out  of  my  way.  I  really  did  not  recognize 
the  street  in  which  I  stood.  I  had  been  for  so 
many  years  accustomed  to  driving  everywhere 
that,  like  other  doctors,  I  hardly  knew  how  to 
walk ;  and  by  the  time  I  made  my  way  back 
to  the  great  thoroughfare  where  I  had  collided 
with  Mrs.  Faith's  carriage,  no  trace  of  the 
tragedy  was  to  be  found ;  or  at  least  I  could 
not  find  any.  After  looking  in  vain,  for  a 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  57 

while,  I  stopped  a  man,  and  asked  him  if  there 
had  not  been  a  carriage  accident  there  within 
half  an  hour.  He  lifted  his  eyes  to  me  stu 
pidly,  and  went  on.  I  put  the  same  question 
to  some  one  else  —  a  lazy  fellow,  who  was 
leaning  against  an  iron  railing  and  staring  at 
me.  But  he  sho<^k  his  head  decidedly. 

A  young  priest  Jpassed  by,  at  this  moment, 
saymg  an  Avewith  moving  lips  and  unworldly 
eyes,  and  I  made  inquiries  of  him  whether  a 
lady  and  a  child  had  just  been  injured  in  that 
vicinity  by  a  runaway. 

"  Nay,"  he  said,  gazing  at  me  with  a  lumi 
nous  look.  "  Nay,  I  see  nothing." 

After  an  mstant's  hesitation  the  priest  made 
the  sign  of  the  cross  both  upon  himself  and 
me ;  and  then  stretched  his  hands  in  blessing 
over  me,  and  silently  went  his  way.  I  thought 
this  very  kind  in  him ;  and  I  bowed,  as  we 
parted,  saying  aloud  :  — 

"Thank  you,  Father,"  for  my  heart  was 
touched,  despite  myself,  at  the  manner  of  the 
young  devotee. 

It  had  surely  been  my  intention,  on  failing 


58  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

to  find  any  traces  of  the  accident  in  the  spot 
where  I  supposed  that  it  had  taken  place,  to 
go  at  once  to  the  house  of  Mrs.  Faith,  and  in 
quire  for  her  welfare  and  the  boy's.  It  was 
the  least  I  could  do,  under  the  circumstances. 

Apparently,  however.  I  myself  was  more 
shaken  than  I  had  thought ;  for  after  my  brief 
interview  with  the  priest  I  speedily  lost  my 
way,  and  could  not  find  my  patient's  street 
or  number.  I  searched  for  it  for  some  time 
confusedly;  but  the  brain  was  clearly  still 
affected  by  the  concussion  —  so  much  so  that 
it  was  not  long  before  I  forgot  what  I  was 
searching  for,  and  went  my  ways  with  a  dim 
and  idle  purpose,  such  as  must  accompany 
much  of  the  action  of  those  in  whom  the  rela 
tion  between  mind  and  body  has  become,  for 
any  cause,  disarranged. 

After  an  interval  —  how  long  I  cannot  tell 
—  of  this  suspended  intelligence,  my  brain 
grew  more  clear  and  natural,  and  I  remem 
bered  that  I  was  very  late  at  the  hospital,  at 
the  consultation,  at  Brake's,  at  every  appoint 
ment  of  the  evening;  so  late  that  my  accus- 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  59 

tomed  sense  of  haste  now  began  to  possess  me 
to  the  exclusion  of  everything  else.  I  remem 
bered  my  wife,  indeed,  and  wondered  if  I  had 
better  go  back  and  tell  her  that  I  was  not 
hurt.  But  it  did  not  strike  me  as  necessary. 
Donna,  if  she  had  not  broken  her  neck  some 
where,  by  this  time,  would  run  straight  for  the 
stable  ;  she  would  not  go  home.  The  buggy 
was  a  wreck,  and  the  police  might  clear  it 
away.  There  was  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
Helen  would  hear  of  the  accident,  that  I  could 
see,  from  any  source.  There  would  be  no 
scare.  I  had  better  go  about  my  business, 
and  tell  her  when  I  got  home.  News  like  this 
would  keep  an  hour  or  two,  and  everybody  the 
better  for  the  keeping. 

Reasoning  in  this  manner,  if  it  can  be  said 
to  be  reasoning,  I  took  my  way  to  the  hos 
pital  as  fast  as  possible.  I  did  not  happen 
to  find  a  cab ;  and  I  gave  myself  the  unusual 
experience  of  hailing  a  horse-car.  The  car 
did  not  stop  for  my  signal,  and  I  flung  myself 
aboard  as  best  I  might ;  for  a  man  so  recently 
shaken  up,  with  creditable  ease,  I  thought. 


60  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

Trusting  to  this  circumstance,  when  we 
reached  the  hospital  I  leaped  from  the  car, 
which  was  going  at  full  speed ;  it  was  not  till 
I  was  well  up  the  avenue  that  I  recalled  hav 
ing  forgotten  to  offer  my  fare,  which  the  con 
ductor  had  omitted  to  demand. 

"  My  head  is  not  straight  yet,"  I  said.  The 
little  incident  annoyed  me. 

In  the  hospital  I  found,  as  I  expected,  a 
professional  cyclone  raging.  The  staff  were 
all  there,  except  myself,  and  so  hotly  engaged 
in  discussion  that  my  arrival  was  treated  with 
indifference.  This  was  undoubtedly  good  for 
me,  but  it  was  not,  therefore,  agreeable  to  me  ; 
and  I  entered  at  once  with  some  emphasis 
upon  the  dispute  in  hand. 

"  You  are  entirely  wrong,"  I  began,  turning 
upon  my  opponents.  "  This  institution  had 
seven  hundred  more  applicants  than  it  could 
accommodate  last  year.  We  are  not  char 
tered  to  turn  away  suffering.  We  exist  to  re 
lieve  it.  It  is  our  business  to  find  the  means 
to  do  so,  as  much  as  it  is  to  find  the  true  rem 
edy  for  the  individual  case.  It  is  "  — 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  61 

"  It  is  an  act  of  financial  folly,"  interrupted 
my  most  systematic  professional  enemy,  a  cer 
tain  Dr.  Gazell.  He  had  a  bland  voice 
which  irritated  me  like  sugar  sauce  put  upon 
horse  -  radish.  "  It  cannot  be  done  without 
mortgaging  ourselves  up  to  our  ears  —  or  our 
eaves.  I  maintain  that  the  hospital  can  better 
bear  to  turn  off  patients  than  to  turn  on  debt." 

"  And  I  maintain,"  I  cried,  tempestuously, 
"  that  this  hospital  cannot  bear  to  do  either  ! 
If  the  gentlemen  gathered  here  to-night  —  the 
members  of  this  staff,  representing  as  they  do, 
the  wealthiest  and  most  influential  clienteles 
in  the  city  —  if  we  cannot  among  us  pledge 
from  our  patients  the  sum  needed  to  put  this 
thing  through,  I  say  it  is  a  poor  show  for 
ourselves.  I,  for  one,  am  ready  to  raise  fif 
teen  thousand  dollars  within  three  months.  If 
the  rest  of  you  will  do  your  share  in  propor 
tion  "  — 

"  Dr.  Thorne  has  always  been  a  little  too 
personal,  in  this  matter,"  said  Gazell,  redden 
ing  ;  he  did  not  look  at  me,  for  embarrassment, 
but  addressed  the  chairman  of  the  meeting  with 


62  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

a  vague  air  of  being  in  earnest,  if  any  one  could 
be  got  to  believe  it. 

"  No  doubt  about  that,"  said  one  of  the  staff 
in  an  undertone.  "  Thorne  is  " —  I  thought  I 
caught  the  added  words,  "  unreasonable  fel 
low,"  but  I  would  not  give  myself  the  appear 
ance  of  having  done  so. 

"  But  we  can't  afford  to  quarrel  with  him 
altogether,"  suggested  Chirugeon,  still  in  a 
tone  not  meant  for  me  to  overhear.  And  with 
this  they  went  at  it  again,  till  the  discussion 
reached  such  warmth,  and  the  motion  to  leave 
the  subject  with  the  trustees  such  favor,  that, 
in  disgust,  I  seized  my  hat  and  strode  out  of 
the  room. 

Smarting,  I  rushed  away  from  them,  and 
angrily  out-of-doors  again.  I  was  exceedingly 
angry;  but  this  gave  me  no  more,  perhaps 
(though  I  thought,  a  little),  than  the  usual 
discomfort. 

From  the  hospital  I  hurried  to  the  consul 
tation  ;  where  I  was  now  well  over-due.  I 
found  the  attendant  physician  about  to  leave  ; 
in  fact,  I  met  him  on  the  stairs,  up  which  I 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  63 

had  run  rapidly,  as  soon  as  my  ring  was  an 
swered  in  the  familiar  house.  This  man  was 
followed  by  old  Madam  Decker's  daughter, 
who  was  weeping. 

"She  died  at  six  o'clock,  Dr.  Halt," 
Miss  Decker  sobbed,  "  at  six  precisely,  for  I 
noticed.  We  did  n't  expect  it  so  soon." 

"  Nor  I,  either,"  said  Halt,  soothingly.  "  I 
did  not  anticipate  "  — 

"  Dead !  "  I  cried.  "  Mrs.  Decker  dead  ?  I 
did  my  best  —  I  have  met  with  an  accident. 
I  could  not  come  till  now.  Did  she  ask  for 
me?" 

"  She  talked  of  Dr.  Thome,"  sobbed  Miss 
Decker,  "  as  long  as  she  could  talk  of  anything. 
She  wondered  if  he  knew,  she  said,  how  sick 
she  was." 

I  hastened  to  explain,  to  protest,  to  sympa 
thize,  to  say  the  idle  words  with  which  we 
waste  ourselves  and  weary  mourners,  at  such 
times  ;  but  the  daughter  paid  little  attention 
to  me.  She  was  evidently  hurt  at  my  delay  ; 
and,  thinking  it  best  to  spare  her  my  pres 
ence,  I  bowed  my  head  in  silence,  and  left  the 
house. 


64  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

Halt  followed  me,  and  we  stood  together  for 
a  moment  outside,  where  his  carriage  and 
driver  awaited  him. 

"  Was  she  conscious  to  the  end  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Yes,"  he  murmured.  "  Yes,  yes,  yes.  It 
is  a  pity.  I  'm  sorry  for  that  girl." 

Nodding  shortly  in  my  direction,  he  sprang 
into  his  coupe,  and  drove  away. 

I  had  now  begun  to  be  very  restless  to  get 
home.  It  seemed  suddenly  important  to  see 
Helen.  I  felt,  I  knew  not  why,  uneasy  and 
impatient,  and  turned  my  steps  toward  town. 

"  But  I  must  stop  at  Brake's,"  I  thought. 
This  seemed  imperative ;  so  much  so  that  I 
went  out  of  my  course  a  little,  to  reach  his 
house,  a  pretty,  suburban  place.  I  remember 
passing  under  trees;  and  the  depth  of  their 
shadow ;  it  seemed  like  a  bay  of  blackness  into 
which  the  night  flowed.  I  looked  up  through 
it  at  the  sky  ;  stars  showed  through  the  massed 
clouds  which  the  wind  whipped  along  like  a 
flock  of  titanic  celestial  creatures.  I  had  not 
looked  up  before,  since  the  accident.  The  act 
gave  me  strange  sensations,  as  if  the  sky  had 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  65 

lowered,  or  I  had  risen  ;  the  sense  of  having 
lost  the  usual  scale  of  measurement.  This 
reminded  me  that  I  was  still  not  altogether 
right. 

"  I  have  really  hurt  my  head,"  I  thought, 
"  I  ought  to  get  home.  I  must  hurry  this  busi 
ness  with  Brake.  I  must  get  to  Helen." 

But  Brake  was  not  at  home.  As  I  went  up 
the  steps,  his  servant  was  ushering  out  some  one, 
to  whom  I  heard  the  man  say  that  Mr.  Brake 
had  left  word  not  to  expect  him  to-night. 

"  Does  he  ever  stay  late  at  the  office  ?  "  I 
asked,  thinking  that  the  panic  might^  render 
this  possible. 

The  man  turned  the  expressionless  counte 
nance  of  a  well-trained  servant  upon  me  ;  and 
repeated :  — 

"  Mr.  Brake  is  not  at  home.  I  know  noth 
ing  further  about  Mr.  Brake's  movements." 

This  reply  settled  the  matter  in  my  own 
mind,  and  I  made  my  way  to  Stock  Street 
as  fast  as  I  might.  I  could  not  make  it  seem 
unnecessary  to  see  Brake.  But  Helen  — 
Helen  —  The  sooner  this  wretched  detention 


66  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

was  over,  the  sooner  to  see  her.  I  had  begun 
to  be  as  nervous  as  a  woman  ;  and,  I  might 
add,  as  unreasonable  as  a  sick  one.  I  had 
got  myself  under  the  domination  of  one  of 
those  fixed  ideas  with  which  I  had  so  little 
patience  in  the  sick.  I  could  not  see  Helen 
till  I  had  seen  Brake :  this  was  the  delusion. 
I  succumbed  to  it,  and  knew  that  I  succumbed 
to  it,  and  could  not  help  it,  and  knew  that  I 
could  not  help  it,  and  did  the  deed  it  bade  me. 
As  I  hurried  on  my  way,  I  thought :  — 

"  There  has  been  considerable  concussion. 
But  Helen  will  take  care  of  me.  It 's  a  pity 
I  spoke  so  to  Helen." 

Stock  Street,  when  I  reached  it,  had  a  strange 
look  to  me.  I  was  not  used  to  being  there  at 
such  an  hour  ;  few  of  us  are.  The  relative  si 
lence,  the  few  passers,  the  long  empty  spaces 
on  the  great  thoroughfare,  told  me  that  the 
hour  was  later  than  I  thought.  This  added  to 
my  restlessness,  and  I  sought  to  look  at  my 
watch,  for  the  first  time  since  the  accident ;  it 
was  gone.  I  glanced  at  the  high  clock  at  the 
head  of  the  street ;  but  the  light  was  imper- 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  67 

feet,  and  with  the  vertigo  which  I  had  I  did 
not  make  out  the  hour.  It  might,  indeed,  be 
really  late.  This  troubled  me,  and  I  hastened 
my  steps  till  I  broke  into  a  run. 

It  occurred  to  me,  indeed,  that  I  might  be 
arrested  for  the  suspicions  under  which  such 
a  pace,  at  such  an  hour  and  on  such  a  street, 
would  place  me.  But  as  I  knew  most  of  the 
members  of  the  force  in  that  region  more  or 
less  well,  this  did  not  trouble  me.  I  ran  on, 
undisturbed,  passing  a  watchman  or  two,  and 
came  quickly  to  Brake's  place.  It  was  locked. 

This  distressed  me.  I  think  I  had  confi 
dently  expected  to  find  him  there.  It  did  not 
seem  to  me  possible  to  go  home  without  see 
ing  my  broker.  I  stood,  uncertain,  rattling  at 
the  heavy  door  with  imbecile  impatience.  This 
act  brought  the  police  to  the  spot  in  three 
minutes. 

It  was  Inspector  Dray  ton  who  came  up, 
the  well-known  inspector,  so  long  on  duty  in 
Stock  Street ;  a  man  famed  for  his  professional 
shrewdness  and  his  gentlemanly  manner. 

"  I  wish,"  I  said,  "  Mr.  Inspector,  that  you 


68  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

would  be  good  enough  to  let  me  in.  I  want 
to  see  Brake.  I  have  reason  to  believe  he  is 
in  his  office.  I  must  get  in." 

"  It  is  very  important,"  I  added  ;  for  the 
inspector  did  not  answer  immediately,  but 
looked  at  me  searchingly. 

"  There  was  certainly  some  one  meddling 
with  this  lock,"  he  said,  after  a  moment's  hes 
itation,  looking  stealthily  up  and  down  and 
around  the  street. 

"  It  was  I,"  I  replied,  eagerly.  "  It  was 
only  I,  Dr.  Thome.  Come,  Drayton,  you 
know  me.  I  want  to  see  Brake.  I  must  see 
Brake.  It  is  a  matter  brought  up  by  this 
panic  — you  know  —  the  Santa  Ma.  He  sent 
for  me.  I  absolutely  must  see  Brake.  It  is 
a  matter  of  thousands  to  me.  Let  me  in,  Mr. 
Inspector." 

"  Come,"  for  he  still  delayed  and  doubted, 
"  let  me  in  somehow.  You  fellows  have  a 
way.  Communicate  with  his  watchman  —  do 
the  proper  thing  —  anyhow  —  I  don't  care  — 
only  let  me  in." 

"  I  will  see,"  murmured  the  inspector,  with 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  69 

a  perplexed  air  ;  he  had  not  his  usual  cordial 
manner  with  me,  though  he  was  still  as  polished 
as  possible,  and  wore  the  best  of  kid  gloves. 
I  think  the  inspector  touched  one  of  their 
electric  signals  —  I  am  not  clear  about  this  — 
but  at  any  rate,  a  sleepy  watchman  came  from 
within,  holding  a  safety  lantern  before  him, 
and  gingerly  opened  the  huge  door  an  inch  or 
two. 

"Let  me  come  in,"  said  the  inspector,  de 
cidedly.  "It  is  I — Dray  ton.  I  have  a  rea 
son.  I  wish  to  go  to  Mr.  Brake's  rooms,  if 
you  please." 

The  inspector  slipped  in  like  a  ghost,  and 
I  followed  him.  Neither  of  us  said  anything 
further  to  the  watchman  ;  we  went  directly  to 
Brake's  place.  He  was  not  there. 

"  I  will  wait  a  few  minutes,"  I  said.  "  I 
think  he  will  be  here.  I  must  see  Brake." 

The  inspector  glanced  at  me  as  one  does 
at  a  fellow  who  is  behaving  a  little  out  of  the 
common  course  of  human  conduct ;  but  he  did 
not  enter  into  conversation  with  me,  seeing 
me  averse  to  it.  I  sank  down  wearily  upon 


70  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

Brake's  biggest  brown  leather  office  chair,  and 
put  my  head  down  upon  his  table.  I  was  now 
thoroughly  tired  and  confused.  I  wished  with 
all  my  heart  that  I  had  gone  straight  home 
to  Helen.  The  inspector  and  the  watchman 
busied  themselves  in  examining  the  building, 
for  some  purpose  to  which  I  paid  no  attention. 
They  conversed  in  low  tones.  "I  heard  a 
noise  at  the  door,  sir,  myself,"  the  watchman 
said. 

"Why  don't  you  tell  him  it  was  I?"  I 
called  ;  but  I  did  not  lift  my  head.  I  was  too 
tired  to  trouble  myself.  I  must  have  fallen 
into  a  kind  of  stupor. 

I  do  not  know  how  long  I  had  remained  in 
this  position  and  condition,  whether  minutes 
or  hours  ;  but  when  at  last  I  roused  myself, 
and  looked  about,  a  singular  thing  had  hap 
pened. 

The  inspector  had  gone.  The  watchman 
had  gone.  I  was  alone  in  the  broker's  office. 
And  I  was  locked  in. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

So  often  and  so  idly  it  is  our  custom  to  say, 
I  shall  never  forget!  that  the  words  scarcely 
cause  a  ripple  of  comment  in  the  mind; 
whereas,  in  fact,  they  are  among  the  most 
audacious  which  we  ever  take  upon  our  lips. 
How  know  we  what  law  of  selection  our  mem 
ories  will  obey  in  that  system  of  mental  re 
lations  which  we  call  "  forever  "  ? 

I,  who  believe  myself  to  have  obtained  some 
especial  knowledge  upon  this  point,  not  pos 
sessed  by  all  my  readers,  and  to  be  more  free 
than  many  another  to  use  such  language,  still 
retreat  before  the  phrase,  and  content  myself 
with  saying,  "  I  have  never  forgotten."  Up 
to  this  time  I  have  never  been  able  to  forget 
the  smallest  detail  of  that  night  whose  history 
I  am  now  to  record.  It  seems  to  me  impossi 
ble  in  any  set  of  conditions  that  memory  could 
blot  that  experience  from  my  being;  but  of 


72  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

that,  what  know  I  ?     No  more  than  I  know  of 
the  politics  of  a  meteor. 

Upon  discovering  my  predicament  I  was,  of 
course,  greatly  disturbed.  I  tried  the  door, 
and  tried  again  ;  I  urged  the  latch  violently ; 
I  exerted  myself  till  the  mere  moral  sense  of 
my  helplessness  overcame  my  strength.  I 
called  to  the  watchman,  whose  distant  steps  I 
heard,  or  fancied  that  I  heard,  pacing  the  cor 
ridors.  There  was  a  Safe  Deposit  in  the  base 
ment,  and  the  great  building  was  heavily 
guarded.  I  shouted  for  my  liberty,  I  pleaded 
for  it,  I  demanded  it ;  but  I  did  not  get  it. 
No  one  answered  me.  I  ran  to  the  barred 
windows  and  shook  the  iron  casement  as  pris 
oners  and  madmen  do.  Nobody  heard  me.  I 
bethought  me  of  the  private  telegraph  which 
stood  by  Brake's  desk,  mute  and  mysterious, 
like  a  thing  that  waited  an  order  to  speak.  I 
could  not  help  wondering,  with  something  like 
superstition,  what  would  be  the  next  words 
which  would  pass  the  lips  of  the  silent  metal. 
It  occurred  to  me,  of  course,  to  telegraph  for 
relief ;  but  I  did  not  know  how,  and  a  kind  of 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  73 

respect  for  the  intelligence  and  power  of  the 
instrument  deterred  me  from  meddling  with  it 
to  no  visible  end.  Suddenly  I  remembered 
the  electric  signal  which  so  often  communi 
cates  with  watchman  or  police  in  places  of  this 
kind.  This,  after  some  search,  I  found  in  a 
corner,  over  the  desk  of  Brake's  assistant,  and 
this  I  touched.  My  effort  brought  no  reply. 
I  pressed  the  button  again  with  more  force 
and  more  desperation ;  I  might  say,  with  more 
personality. 

"  Obey  me  !  "  I  cried,  setting  my  teeth,  and 
addressing  the  electric  influence  as  a  man  ad 
dresses  a  menial. 

Instantly  a  thrill  passed  from  the  wire  to 
the  hand.  A  distant  sound  jarred  upon  the 
air.  Steps  shuffled  somewhere  beyond  the 
massive  walls.  I  even  thought  that  I  heard 
voices,  as  of  the  watchman  and  others  in  pos 
sible  consultation.  No  one  approached  the 
broker's  door.  I  urged  the  signal  again  and 
again.  I  became  quite  frantic,  for  I  had  now 
begun  to  think  with  dismay  of  the  effect  of  all 
this  upon  my  wife.  I  railed  upon  that  signal 


74  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

like  a  delirious  patient  at  the  order  of  a  phy 
sician.  A  commotion  seemed  to  follow,  in 
some  distant  part  of  the  building.  But  no 
one  came  within  hearing  of  my  voice ;  the 
noise  soon  ceased,  and  my  efforts  at  freedom 
with  it. 

It  having  now  become  evident  that  I  must 
spend  the  night  where  I  was,  I  proceeded  to 
make  the  best  of  it ;  and  a  very  bad  best  it 
was.  I  was  exhausted,  I  was  angry,  and  I 
was  distressed. 

The  full  force  of  the  situation  was  beginning 
to  fall  upon  me.  The  inspector  had  put  a  not 
unnatural  interpretation  upon  my  condition ; 
he  thought  so  little  of  a  gentleman  who  had 
dined  too  freely;  it  was  a  perfectly  normal 
incident  in  his  experience.  He  had  mistaken 
the  character  of  the  stupor  caused  by  my  ac 
cident,  and  left  me  in  that  office  for  a  drunken 
man.  The  fact  that  he  was  not  accustomed 
to  view  me  in  such  a  light  in  itself  probably 
explained  the  originality  of  his  method.  We 
were  on  pleasant  terms.  Dray  ton  was  a  good 
fellow.  Who  knew  better  than  he  what  would 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  75 

be  the  professional  significance  of  the  circum 
stance  that  Dr.  Thome  was  seen  intoxicated 
down  town  at  midnight  ?  The  city  would 
ring  with  it  in  twelve  hours,  and  it  would  not 
be  for  me,  though  I  had  been  the  most  pop 
ular  doctor  in  town,  to  undo  the  deed  of  that 
slander,  if  once  it  so  much  as  lifted  its  in 
visible  hand  against  the  proud  and  pure  rep 
utation  in  whose  shelter  I  lived  and  labored, 
and  had  been  suffered  to  become  what  we 
call  "  eminent."  It  was  possible,  too,  that 
the  inspector  had  some  human  regard  for  my 
family  in  this  matter,  and  reasoned  that  to 
spare  them  the  knowledge  of  my  supposed  dis 
grace  was  the  truest  kindness  wherewith  it  was 
in  his  power  to  serve  me.  He  meant  to  leave 
me  where  I  was  and  as  I  was  to  sleep  it  off  till 
morning.  He  would  return  in  good  season 
and  release  me  quietly,  and  nobody  the  wiser 
but  the  watchman  ;  who  could  be  feed.  This 
was  plainly  the  purpose  and  the  programme. 

But  Helen  - 

I  returned  to  the  table  near  which  I  had 
been  sitting,  and  took  the  office  chair  again, 


76  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

and  tried,  like  a  reasonable  creature,  to  calm 
myself. 

What  would  Helen  think  by  this  time  ?  I 
looked  about  the  office  stupidly.  At  first  the 
dreary  scene  presented  few  details  to  me  ;  but 
after  a  time  they  took  on  the  precision  and 
permanence  which  trifles  acquire  in  emergen 
cies.  The  gas  was  not  lighted,  but  I  could 
see  with  considerable  ease,  owing  to  the  over 
wrought  brain  condition.  It  occurred  to  me 
that  I  saw  like  a  cat  or  a  medium ;  I  noted 
this,  as  indicative  of  a  certain  remedy ;  and 
then  it  further  occurred  to  me  that  I  might 
as  well  prescribe  for  myself,  having  nothing 
better  to  do ;  and  plainly  there  was  something 
wrong.  I  therefore  put  my  hand  in  my  pocket 
for  my  case.  It  was  gone. 

Now,  a  physician  of  my  sort  is  as  ill  at  ease 
without  his  case  as  he  would  be  without  his 
body  ;  and  this  little  circumstance  added  dis 
proportionately  to  my  discomfort.  With  some 
irritable  exclamation  on  my  lips  I  leaned  back 
in  the  chair,  and  once  more  regarded  my  en 
vironment.  It  was  a  rather  large  room,  dim 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  77 

now,  and  as  solitary  as  a  graveyard  after  twi 
light.  Before  me  stood  the  table,  an  oblong 
table  covered  with  brown  felt.  A  blue  blotter, 
of  huge  dimensions,  was  spread  from  end  to 
end ;  it  was  a  new  blotter,  not  much  blurred. 
Inkstand,  pens,  paper-weight,  calendar,  and 
other  trifles  of  a  strictly  necessary  nature  stood 
upon  the  blotter.  Letters  on  file,  and  brokers' 
memoranda  neatly  stabbed  by  the  iron  stiletto 
—  I  forget  the  name  of  the  thing  —  for  that 
purpose  made  and  provided,  attracted  my  sick 
attention.  An  advertisement  from  a  Western 
mortgage  firm  had  escaped  the  neat  ^liand  of 
the  clerk  who  put  the  office  in  order  for  the 
night,  and  fell  fluttering  to  my  feet.  It  would 
be  impossible  to  say  how  important  this  seemed 
to  me.  I  picked  it  up  conscientiously,  and 
filed  it,  to  the  best  of  my  remembrance,  with 
an  invitation  to  the  Merchant's  Banquet,  and 
a  subscription  list  in  behalf  of  the  blind  man 
who  sold  tissue-paper  roses  at  the  head  of  the 
street. 

In  one  corner  of  the  room,  as  I  have  said, 
was  the  clerk's  desk  ;  the  electric  signal  shone 


78  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

faintly  above  it ;  it  had,  to  my  eyes,  a  certain 
phosphorescent  appearance.  Opposite,  the 
steam  radiator  stood  like  a  skeleton.  There 
was  a  grate  in  the  room,  with  a  Cumberland 
coal  fire  laid.  On  the  wall  hung  a  map  of  the 
State,  and  another  setting  forth  the  propor 
tions  of  a  great  Western  railroad.  At  the  ex 
treme  end  of  the  room  stood  chairs  and  settees 
provided  for  auctions.  Between  myself  and 
these,  the  high,  guarded  public  desk  of  the 
broker  rose  like  a  rampart. 

In  this  sombre  and  severe  place  I  now  aban 
doned  myself  to  my  thoughts  ;  and  these  gave 
me  no  mercy. 

My  wife  was  a  reasonable  woman  ;  but  she 
was  a  loving  and  sensitive  one.  I  was  accus 
tomed  to  spare  her  all  unnecessary  uncertainty 
as  to  my  movements  —  being  more  careful  in 
this  respect,  perhaps,  than  most  physicians 
would  be ;  our  profession  covers  a  multitude 
of  little  domestic  sins.  I  had  not  taken  the 
ground  that  I  was  never  to  be  expected  till  I 
came.  A  system  of  affectionate  communication 
as  to  my  whereabouts  existed  between  us ;  it 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  79 

was  one  of  the  pleasant  customs  of  our  honey 
moon  which  had  lasted  over.  The  telegraph 
and  the  messenger  boy  we  had  always  with  us  ; 
it  was  a  little  matter  for  a  man  to  take  the 
trouble  to  tell  his  wife  why  and  where  he  was 
kept  away  all  night.  I  do  not  remember  that 
I  had  ever  failed  to  do  so.  It  was  a  bother 
sometimes,  I  admit,  but  the  pleasure  it  gave 
her  usually  repaid  me ;  such  is  the  small,  sweet 
coin  of  daily  love. 

As  I  sat  there  at  the  broker's  desk,  like  a 
creature  in  a  trap,  all  that  long  and  wretched 
night,  the  image  of  my  wife  seemed  to, devour 
my  brain  and  my  reason. 

The  great  clock  on  the  neighboring  churcnX 
struck  one  with  a  heavy  and  a  solemn  intona- 
tion,  of  which  I  can  only  say  that  it  was  to 
me  unlike  anything  I  had  ever  heard  before. 
It  gave  me  a  shudder  to  hear  it,  as  if  I  lis 
tened  to  some  supernatural  thing.  The  first 
hour  of  the  new  day  rang  like  a  long  cry. 
Some  freak  of  association  brought  to  my  mind 
that  angel  in  the  Apocalypse  who  proclaimed 
with  a  mighty  voice  that  Time  should  be  no 


80  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

more.  I  caught  myself  thinking  this  prepos 
terous  thing  :  Suppose  it  were  all  over  ?  Sup 
pose  we  never  saw  each  other  again  ?  Suppose 
my  wife  were  to  die  ?  To-night  ?  Suppose 
some  accident  befell  her  ?  If  she  tripped  up 
stairs?  If  the  child's  crib  took  fire  and  she 
put  it  out,  and  herself  received  one  of  those 
deadly  shocks  from  burns  not  in  themselves 
mortal  ? 

Suppose  —  she  herself  opening  the  door  to 
let  in  the  messenger  expected  from  me  —  that 
some  drunken  fellow,  or  some  tramp  — 

"  This,"  I  said  aloud,  "  is  the  kind  of  thing 
she  does  when  I  am  delayed.  This  is  what  it 
means  to  wait.  Men  don't  do  it  often  enough 
to  know  what  it  is.  I  wonder  if  we  have  any 
scale  of  measurement  for  what  women  suf 
fer?" 

What  she,  for  instance,  by  that  time  was 
suffering,  oh,  who  in  the  wide  world  else  could 
guess  or  dream?  There  were  such  suffering 
cells  in  that  exquisite  nature  !  Who  but  me 
could  understand  ? 

I  brought  my  clinched  hand  down  upon  the 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  81 

broker's  blue  blotting-paper,  and  laid  my  heavy 
head  upon  it. 

Suppose  somebody  had  got  the  news  to  her 
that  the  horse  had  been  seen  dashing  free  of 
the  buggy,  or  had  returned  alone  to  the  stable, 
panting  and  cut  ? 

Suppose  Helen  thought  that  my  unaccount 
able  absence  had  something  to  do  with  that 
scene  between  us  ?  Suppose  she  thought  —  or 
if  she  suspected  —  perhaps  she  imagined  — 

I  hid  my  face  within  my  shaking  hands  and 
groaned.  A  curse  upon  the  cruel  words  that 
I  had  spoken  to  the  tenderest  of  souls,  to  the 
dearest  and  the  gentlest  of  women  !  'A  curse 
upon  the  lawless  temper  that  had  fired  them  ! 
Accursed  the  hot  lips  that  had  uttered  them, 
the  unmanly  heart  that  could  have  let  them 
slip! 

I  thought  of  her  face  —  I  really  had  not 
thought  of  her  face  before,  that  wretched  night. 
I  had  not  strictly  dared.  Now  I  found  that 
daring  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  I  thought 
because  I  had  to  think.  I  dwelt  upon  her  ex 
pression  when  I  spoke  to  her  —  God  forgive 


82  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

me !  —  as  I  did ;  her  attitude,  the  way  her 
hands  fell,  her  silence,  the  quiver  in  her  del 
icate  mouth.  I  saw  the  dim  parlor,  the 
lighted  room  beyond  her,  the  scarlet  shade 
upon  the  gas ;  she  standing  midway,  tall  and 
mute,  like  a  statue  carved  by  one  stroke  of  a 
sword. 

My  own  words  came  back  to  me  ;  and  I  was 
not  apt  to  remember  things  I  said  to  people. 
So  many  impressions  passed  in  and  out  of  my 
mind  in  the  course  of  one  busy  day,  that  I 
became  their  victim  rather  than  their  master. 
But  now  my  language  to  my  wife  that  un 
happy  evening  returned  to  my  consciousness 
with  incredible  vividness  and  minuteness.  It 
will  be  seen  from  the  precision  with  which  I 
have  already  recorded  it,  how  inexorable  this 
minuteness  was. 

It  occurred  to  me  that  I  might  as  well  have 
struck  her. 

In  this  kind  of  moral  pommeling  which 
sensitive  women  feel  —  as  they  do  —  how 
could  I  have  indulged !  I,  who  knew  what  a 
sensitive  woman  is,  what  fearful  and  wonder- 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  83 

ful  nervous  systems  these  delicate  creatures 
have  to  manage ;  I,  with  what  I  was  pleased 
to  term  my  high  organization  and  special  train 
ing  —  I,  like  any  brutal  hind,  had  berated  my 
wife.  I,  who  was  punctilious  to  draw  the 
silken  portiere  for  her,  who  could  not  let  her 
pick  up  so  much  as  her  own  lace  handkerchief, 
nor  allow  her  to  fold  a  wrap  of  the  weight  of 
a  curlew's  feather  about  her  own  soft  throat  — 
I  had  belabored  her  with  the  bludgeons  that 
bruise  the  life  out  of  women's  souls.  I  won 
dered,  indeed,  if  I  should  have  been  a  less  ami 
able  fellow  if  I  had  worn  cow-hide  boots  and 
kicked  her. 

My  reproaches,  my  remorses,  my  distresses, 
it  is  now  an  idle  tale  to  tell.  That  night 
passed  like  none  before  it,  and  none  which 
have  come  after  it.  My  mind  moved  with  a 
piteous  monotony  over  and  over  and  about  the 
aching  thought :  to  see  Helen  —  to  see  Helen 
—  to  be  patient  till  morning,  and  tell  Helen  — 
Only  to  get  through  this  horrible  night,  and 
hurry,  rushing  to  the  morning  air,  to  the  nearest 
cab  dashing  down  the  street,  and  making  the 


84  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

mad  haste  of  love  and  shame,  to  see  my  wife 
—  to  tell  my  wife  — 

As  never  in  all  our  lives  before,  I  should  tell 
her  how  dear  she  was ;  how  unworthy  was  I 
to  love  her ;  how  I  loved  her  just  as  much  as  if 
I  were  worthy,  and  could  not  help  it  though  I 
tried  —  or  (as  we  say)  could  not  help  it 
though  I  died  !  I  should  run  up,  ringing  the 
bell,  never  waiting  to  find  the  latch-key  —  for 
I  could  wait  for  nothing.  I  should  spring  into 
the  house,  and  find  her  up-stairs,  in  our  own 
room  ;  it  would  be  so  early  ;  she  would  be  only 
half -dressed,  yet,  pale  and  lovely,  looking  like  a 
spirit,  far  across  the  rich  colors  of  the  room,  her 
long  hair  loose  about  her.  I  should  gather  her 
to  my  heart  before  she  saw  me  ;  my  arms  and 
lips  should  speak  before  my  breaking  voice.  I 
should  kiss  my  soul  out  on  her  lifted  face.  I 
should  love  her  so,  she  should  forgive  me  be 
fore  I  could  so  much  as  say,  Forgive !  And 
when  I  had  her  —  to  myself  again  —  when 
these  arms  were  sure  of  their  own,  and  these 
lips  of  hers,  when  her  precious  breath  was  on 
this  cheek  again,  and  I  could  say  :  — 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  85 

"  Helen,  Helen,  Helen  "  — 
and  could  say  no  more,  for  love  and  shame  and 
sorrow,  but  only  — 

"  Helen,  Helen  "  — 

"  Yes,"  said  the  watchman's  voice  in  the  cor 
ridor.  "  It  is  all  right,  sir.  Me  and  Inspector 
Drayton,  we  thought  we  heard  a  noise,  last 
night,  and  we  considered  it  safe  to  look  about. 
We  had  a  thorough  search.  We  thought  we'd 
better.  But  there  was  n't  nothing.  It 's  all 
straight,  sir." 

It  was  morning,  and  Brake's  clerk  was  com 
ing  in.  It  was  very  early,  earlier  than  he  usu 
ally  came,  perhaps ;  but  I  could  not  tell.  He 
did  not  notice  me  at  first,  and,  remembering 
Drayton's  hypothesis,  I  shrank  behind  the  tall 
desk,  and  instinctively  kept  out  of  sight  for  a 
few  uncertain  minutes,  wondering  what  I  had 
better  do.  The  clerk  called  the  janitor,  and 
scolded  a  little  about  the  fire,  which  he  ordered 
lighted  in  the  grate.  It  was  a  cold  morning. 
He  said  the  room  would  chill  a  corpse.  He 
had  the  morning  papers  in  his  hand.  He  un- 


86  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

folded  the  "  Herald,"  and  laid  it  down  upon 
his  own  desk,  as  if  about  to  read  it. 

At  that  instant,  the  telegraph  clicked,  and 
he  pushed  the  damp,  fresh  paper  away  from 
him,  and  went  immediately  to  the  wires.  The 
young  man  listened  to  the  message  with  an  ex 
pression  of  great  intentness,  and  wrote  rapidly. 
Moved  by  some  unaccountable  impulse,  I  softly 
rose  and  glanced  over  his  shoulder. 

The  dispatch  was  dated  at  midnight,  and 
was  addressed  to  Henry  Brake.  It  said  : 

"  Have  you  seen  my  husband^  to-night  ?  " 
and  it  was  signed,  " Helen  Thorne" 

Oh,  poor  Helen!  .  .  . 

Now,  maniac  with  haste  to  get  to  her,  it  oc 
curred  to  me  that  the  moment  while  the  clerk 
was  occupied  in  recording  this  message  was  as 
good  a  time  as  I  could  ask  for  in  which  to  es 
cape  unobserved,  as  I  greatly  wished  to  do. 
As  quietly  as  I  could  —  and  I  succeeded  in  do 
ing  it  very  quietly  —  I  therefore  moved  to  leave 
the  broker's  office.  As  I  did  so,  my  eye  caught 
the  heading,  in  large  capitals,  of  the  morning 
news  in  the  open  "  Herald "  which  lay  upon 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  87 

the  desk  behind  the  clerk.     I  stopped,  and 
stooped,  and  read.     This  is  what  I  read  :  — 

SHOCKING  ACCIDENT. 

TERRIBLE  TRAGEDY. 

RUNAWAY  AT  THE  WEST  END. 
The  eminent  and  popular  physician?     * 
Dr.  Esmerald  Thorne, 
KILLED  INSTANTLY. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

AT  this  moment,  the  broker  entered  the  of 
fice. 

With  the  "  Herald  "  in  my  hand,  I  made 
haste  to  meet  him. 

"  Brake  !  "  I  cried,  "  Mr.  Brake !  Thank 
Heaven,  you  have  come  !  I  have  passed  such 
a  night  — and  look  here  !  Have  you  seen  this 
abominable  canard  ?  This  is  what  has  come 
of  my  being  locked  into  your"  — 

The  broker  regarded  me  with  a  strange 
look ;  so  strange,  that  for  very  amazement  I 
stood  still  before  it.  He  did  not  advance  to 
meet  me ;  neither  his  hand  nor  his  eyes  gave 
me  the  human  sign  of  welcome ;  he  looked  over 
me,  he  looked  through  me,  as  a  man  does  at 
one  whose  acquaintance  he  has  no  desire  to 
recognize. 

I  thought : — 

"  Dray  ton  has  crammed  him.     He  too  be- 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  89 

lieves  that  I  was  shut  in  here  to  sleep  it  off. 
The  story  will  get  out  in  two  hours.  I  am 
doomed  in  this  town  henceforth  for  a  drunken 
doctor.  I  'd  better  have  been  killed  instantly, 
as  this  infernal  paper  savs." 

But  I  said,  — 

"  Mr.  Brake  ?  You  don't  recognize  me,  I 
think.  It  is  I,  Dr.  Thorne.  I  could  n't  get 
here  before  two.  I  went  to  your  house  last 
evening.  I  got  the  impression  you  were  here, 
so  I  came  after  you.  I  was  locked  in  here  by 
your  confounded  watchman.  They  have  this 
minute  let  me  free.  I  am  in  a  great  hurry  to 
get  home.  Nice  job  this  is  going  to  be ! 
Have  yon  seen  that  ?  " 

I  put  my  shaking  finger  upon  the  "  Herald's  " 
fiery  capitals,  and  held  the  column  folded  to 
wards  him. 

"  Jason,"  he  said,  after  an  instant's  pause, 
"  pick  up  the  '  Herald,'  will  you  ?  A  gust  of 
wind  has  blown  it  from  the  table.  There  must 
be  a  draught.  Please  shut  the  door." 

To  say  that  I  know  of  no  earthly  language 


90  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

which  can  express  the  sensation  that  crawled 
over  me  as  the  broker  uttered  these  words  is 
to  say  little  or  nothing  about  it.  I  use  the 
expression  "  crawled  "  with  some  faint  effort 
to  define  the  slowness  and  the  repulsiveness 
with  which  the  suspicion  of  that  to  which  I 
dared  not  and  did  not  give  a  name,  made 
itself  manifest  to  my  mind. 

"  Excuse  me,  Brake,"  I  said  with  some  agi 
tation,  "  you  did  not  hear  what  I  said.  I  was 
locked  in.  I  am  in  a  hurry  to  get  home.  Ask 
Dray  ton.  Dray  ton  let  me  in.  I  must  get 
home  at  once.  I  shall  sue  the  '  Herald  '  for 
that  outrageous  piece  of  work  —  What  do 
you  suppose  my  wife —  Good  God!  She 
must  have  read  it  by  this  time !  Let  me  by, 
Brake!" 

"  Jason,"  said  the  broker,  "  this  is  a  terri 
ble  thing  !  I  feel  quite  broken  up  about  it." 

"  Brake !  "  I  cried,  "  Henry  Brake  !  Let 
me  pass  you !  Let  me  home  to  my  wife ! 
You  're  in  my  way  —  don't  you  see  ?  You  're 
standing  directly  between  me  and  the  door. 
Let  me  pass  !  " 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  91 

"  There  's  a  private  dispatch  come,"  said  the 
clerk  sadly.  "  It  is  for  you,  sir.  It  is  from 
Mrs.  Thome  herself." 

"  Brake  !  "  I  pleaded,  "  Brake,  Brake !  - 
Jason  !  —  Mr.  Brake  !     Don't  you  hear  me  ?  " 

"  Give  me  the  message,  Jason,"  said  Brake, 
holding  out  his  hand ;  he  seated  himself,  as  he 
did  so,  at  the  office  table,  where  I  had  sat  the 
night  out ;  he  looked  troubled  and  pale ;  he 
handled  the  message  reluctantly,  as  people  do 
in  the  certainty  of  bad  news. 

"In  the  name  of  mercy,  Henry  Brake!  " 
I  cried,  "what  isjihe  meaning  of  this ?  Don't 
you  hear  a  word  I  say  ?  Don't  you  feel  me  ? 
—  There !  "  I  gripped  the  broker  by  the 
shoulder,  and  clinched  both  hands  upon  him 
with  all  my  might.  "  Don't  you  feel  me  ? 
God  Almighty  !  don't  you  see  me,  Brake  ?  " 

"  When  did  this  dispatch  come,  Jason  ?  " 
said  the  broker.  He  laid  Helen's  message 
gently  down  ;  he  had  tears  in  his  eyes. 

"Henry  Brake,"  I  pleaded  brokenly,  for 
my  heart  failed  me  with  a  mighty  fear,  "  an 
swer  me,  in  human  pity's  name.  Are  you 


92  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

gone  deaf  and  blind  ?  Or  am  I  struck  dumb  ? 
QramJE"  — 

"  It  came  ten  minutes  ago,  sir,"  replied  Ja 
son..  "  It  is  dated,  I  see,  at  midnight.  They 
delivered  it  as  soon  as  anybody  was  likely  to  be 
stirring,  here ;  a  bit  before,  too  ;  considering 
the  nature  of  the  message,  I  suppose,  sir." 

"  It  is  a  terrible  affair !  "  repeated  the  bro 
ker  nervously.  "  I  have  known  the  doctor  a 
good  many  years.  He  had  his  peculiarities  ; 
but  he  was  a  good  fellow.  Say — Jason !  " 

"Yes,  sir?" 

"  How  does  it  happen  that  Mrs.  Thorne  — 
You  say  this  message  was  dated  at  mid 
night?" 

"  At  midnight,  sir.     12.15." 

"  How  is  it  she  did  n't  know  by  that  time  ? 
I  pity  the  fellow  who  had  to  tell  her.  She  's 
a  very  attractive  woman.  .  .  .  The  4  Herald  ' 
says —  Where  is  that  paper?  " 

"  The  '  Herald  '  says,"  answered  Jason  de 
corously,  "that  he  was  scooped  into  the  bug 
gy-top,  and  dragged,  and  dashed  against  — 
Here  it  is." 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  93 

He  handed  his  employer  the  paper,  as  I 
had  done,  or  had  thought  I  did,  with  his 
finger  on  the  folded  column.  The  broker  took 
the  paper,  and  slowly  put  on  his  glasses,  and 
slowly  read  aloud  :  — 

"  '  Dr.  Thorne  was  dragged  for  some  little 
distance,  it  is  thought,  before  the  horse  broke 
free.  He  must  have  hit  the  lamp- post,  or  the 
pavement.  He  was  found  in  the  top  of  the 
buggy,  which  was  a  wreck.  The  robe  was 
over  him,  and  his  face  was  hidden.  His  medi 
cine  case  lay  beneath  him ;  the  phials  were 
crushed  to  splinters.  Life  was  extinct  when 
he  was  discovered.  His  watch  had  stopped 
at  five  minutes  past  seven  o'clock.  It  so  hap 
pened  that  he  was  not  immediately  identified, 
though  our  reporter  could  not  learn  the  reason 
of  this  extraordinary  mischance.  By  some 
unpardonable  blunder,  the  body  of  the  dis 
tinguished  and  favorite  physician  was  taken  to 
the  Morgue  ' 

"  That  accounts  for  it,"  said  Jason. 

—  "  '  Was  taken  to  the  Morgue,'  "  read  on 
Mr.  Brake  with  agitated  voice.  "  '  It  was  not 


94  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

until  midnight  that  the  mistake  was  discov 
ered.  A  messenger  was  dispatched  at  twenty 
minutes  after  twelve  o'clock  to  the  elegant 
residence  of  the  popular  doctor,  in  Delight 
Street.  The  news  was  broken  to  the  widow 
as  agreeably  as  possible.  Mrs.  Thorne  is  a 
young  and  very  beautiful  woman,  on  whom 
this  shocking  blow  falls  with  uncommon  cru 
elty. 

"  '  The  body  was  carried  to  Dr.  Thome's 
house  at  one  o'clock.  The  time  of  the  funeral 
is  not  yet  appointed.  The  "  Herald  "  will  be 
informed  as  soon  as  a  decision  is  reached. 

" '  The  death  of  Dr.  Thorne  is  a  loss  to  this 
community  which  it  is  impossible  to,'  —  hm  — 
m  —  'his  distinguished  talents  '  —  hm  —  m  — 
hm  — m." 

The  broker  laid  down  the  paper,  and  sighed. 

"  I  sent  for  him  yesterday,  to  consult  about 
his  affairs,"  he  observed  gently.  "  It  is  a  pity 
for  her  to  lose  that  Santa  Ma.  She  will  need 
it  now.  I  'm  sorry  for  her.  I  don't  know 
how  he  left  her,  exactly.  He  did  a  tremen 
dous  business,  but  he  spent  as  he  went.  He 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  95 

was  a  good  fellow  —  I  always  liked  the  doc 
tor  !  Terrible  affair !  Terrible  affair !  Ja 
son  !  Where  is  that  advertisement  of  Grope 
County  Iowa  Mortgage?  You  have  filed  it  in 
the  wrong  place  !  Be  more  careful  in  future." 

.  .  .  "  Mr.  JBrake !  "  I  tried  once  more; 
and  my  voice  was  the  voice  of  mortal  anguish 
to  my  own  appalled  and  ringing  ear. 

"  Do  you  not  hear  ?  Can  you  not  see  ?  Is 
there  no  one  in  this  place  who  hears?  Or 
sees  me,  either  ?  " 

An  early  customer  had  strayed  in ;  Dray  ton 
was  there ;  and  the  watchman  had  entered. 
The  men  (there  were  five  in  all)  collected  by 
the  broker's  desk,  around  the  morning  papers, 
and  spoke  to  each  other  with  the  familiarity 
which  bad  news  of  any  public  interest  creates. 
They  conversed  in  low  tones.  Their  faces 
wore  a  shocked  expression.  They  spoke  of 
me ;  they  asked  for  more  particulars  of  the 
tragedy  reported  by  the  morning  press ;  they 
mentioned  my  merits  and  defects,  but  said  more 
about  merits  than  defects,  in  the  merciful,  fool 
ish  way  of  people  who  discuss  the  newly  dead. 


96  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

"  I  've  known  him  ten  years,"  said  the  bro 
ker. 

"  I  've  had  the  pleasure  of  the  doctor's  ac 
quaintance  myself  a  good  while,"  said  the 
inspector  politely. 

"Wasn't  he  a  quick-tempered  man?" 
asked  the  customer. 

"  He   cured  a  baby  of  mine  of  the  croup," 

^said   the    watchman.  "It   was   given   up   for 

dead.     And  he  only  charged  me  a  dollar  and 

\  a  half.     He  was  very  kind  to  the  little  chap." 

"  He  set  an  ankle  for  me,  once,  after  a  foot 
ball  match,"  suggested  the  clerk.  "  I  would  n't 
ask  to  be  better  treated.  He  wasn't  a  bit 
rough." 

.  .  .  "Gentlemen,"  I  entreated,  stretching 

out  my  hands  toward  the  group,    "  there   is 

some  mistake  —  I  must  make  it  understood.    I 

am  here.     It  is  I,  Dr.  Thorne ;  Dr.  Esmerald 

("  Thorne.     I   am   in   this   office.      Gentlemen ! 

J    .i  Listen  to  me  !     Look  at  me  !     Look  in  this 

direction  !     For  God's  sake,  try  to  see  me  — 

some  of  you  !  "  .  .  . 

"  He  drove  too  fast  a  horse,"  said  the  cus 
tomer.  "  He  always  has." 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  97 

"  I  must  answer  Mrs.  Thome's  message," 
said  the  broker  sadly,  rising  and  pushing  back 
the  office  chair. 

...  I  shrank,  and  tried  no  more.    I  bowed 
my  head,  and  said  no  other  word.     The  truth, 
incredible   and   terrible   though   it   were,  the" 
truth  which  neither  flesh  nor  spirit  can  escape, 
had  now  forced  itself  upon  my  consciousness. 

I  looked  across  the  broker's  office  at  those 
five  warm  human  beings  as  if  I  had  looked 
across  the  width  of  the  breathing  world. 
Naught  had  I  now  to  say  to  them ;  naught 
could  they  communicate  to  me.  Language 
was  not  between  us,  nor  speech,  nor  any  sign. 
Need  of  mine  could  reach  them  not,  nor  any 
of  their  kind.  For  I  was  the  dead,  and  they 
the  living  men. 

..."  Here  is  your  dog,  sir,"  said  Jason. 
"  He  has  followed  you  in.  He  is  trying  to 
speak  to  you,  in  his  way." 

The  broker  stooped  and  patted  the  dumb 
brute  affectionately.  "  I  understand,  Lion," 
he  said.  "  Yes,  I  understand  you." 

The  dog  looked  lovingly  up  into  his  master's 
face,  and  whined  for  joy. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THIS  incident,  trifling  as  it  was,  I  think, 
did  more  than  anything  which  had  preceded  it 
to  make  me  aware  of  the  nature  of  that  which 
had  befallen  me.  The  live  brute  could  still 
communicate  with  the  living  man.  Skill  of 
scientist  and  philosopher  was  as  naught  to  help 
the  human  spirit  which  had  fled  the  body  to 
make  itself  understood  by  one  which  occupied 
a  body  still.  More  blessed  in  that  moment 
was  Lion,  the  dog,  than  Esmerald  Thome, 
the  dead  man.  I  said  to  myself  :  — 

"I  am  a  desolate  and  an  outcast  creature. 
I  am  become  a  dumb  thing  in  a  deaf  world." 

I  thrust  my  hands  before  nie,  and  wrung 
them  with  a  groan.  It  seemed  incredible  to 
me  that  I  could  die ;  that  was  more  wonder 
ful,  even,  than  to  know  that  I  was  already 
dead. 

I"  It  is  all  over,"  I  moaned.     "  I  have  died, 
am  dead.    I  am  what  they  call  a  dead  man." 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  99 

Now,  at  this  instant,  the  dog  turned  his 
head.  No  human  tympanum  in  the  room  vi 
brated  to  my  cry.  No  human  retina  was  re 
cipient  of  my  anguish.  What  fine,  unclassi 
fied  senses  had  the  highly-organized  animal  by 
which  he  should  become  aware  of  me  ?  The 
dog  turned  his  noble  head  —  he  was  a  St.  Ber 
nard,  with  the  moral  qualities  of  the  breed 
well  marked  upon  his  physiognomy ;  he  lifted 
his  eyes  and  solemnly  regarded  me. 

After  a  moment's  pause  he  gave  vent  to  a 
long  and  mournful  cry. 

"  Don't,  Lion,"  I  said.  "  Keep  quiet,  sir. 
This  is  dreadful !  " 

The  dog  ceased  howling  when  I  spoke  to 
him ;  after  a  little  hesitation  he  came  slowly 
to  the  spot  where  I  was  standing,  and  looked 
earnestly  into  my  face,  as  if  he  saw  me. 
Whether  he  did,  or  how  he  did,  or  why  he  did, 
I  knew  not,  and  I  know  not  now.  The  main 
business  of  this  narrative  will  be  the  recording 
of  facts.  Explanations  it  is  not  mine  to  offer ; 
and  of  speculations  I  have  but  few,  either  to 
give  or  to  withhold. 


100  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

A  great  wistfulness  came  into  my  soul,  as  I 
stood  shut  apart  there  from  those  living  men, 
within  reach  of  their  hands,  within  range  of 
their  eyes,  within  the  vibration  of  their  human 
breath.  I  looked  into  the  animal's  eyes  with 
the  yearning  of  a  sudden  and  an  awful  sense 
of  desolation. 

"  Speak  to  me,  Lion,"  I  whispered.  "  Won't 
you  speak  to  me  ?  " 

"  What  is  that  dog  about  ?  "  asked  the  cus- 
/  tomer,  staring.  "  He  is  standing  in  the  mid 
dle  of  the  room  and  wagging  his  tail  as  if  he 
had  met  somebody." 

The  dog  at  this  instant,  with  eager  signs  of 
pleasure  or  of  pity  —  I  could  not,  indeed,  say 
which  —  put  his  beautiful  face  against  my 
hand,  and  kissed,  or  seemed  to  kiss  it,  sympa 
thetically. 

"  He  has  queer  ways,"  observed  Jason,  the 
clerk,  carelessly ;  "he  knows  more  than  most 
folks  I  know." 

"  True,"  said  his  master,  laughing.  "  I 
don't  feel  that  I  am  Lion's  equal  more  than 
half  the  time,  myself.  He  is  a  noble  fellow. 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  101 

He  has  a  very  superior  nature.  My  wife  de 
clares  he  is  a  poet,  and  that  wh&rhe  goes  off 
by  himself,  and  gazes  into  vacancy  with  that 
sort  of  look,  he  is  composing  verses.'*  -  »!*'?*' 

Another  customer  had  strolled  in  by  this 
time ;  he  laughed  at  the  broker's  easy  wit ; 
the  rest  joined  in  the  laugh ;  some  one  said 
something  which  I  did  not  understand,  and 
Drayton  threw  back  his  head  and  guffawed 
heartily.  I  think  their  laughter  made  me  feel 
more  isolated  from  them  than  anything  had  yet 
done. 

"Why!"  exclaimed  the  broker  t sharply, 
"  what  is  this  ?  Jason !  What  does  this 
mean?" 

His  face,  as  he  turned  it  over  his  shoulder 
to  address  the  clerk,  had  changed  color;  he 
was  indeed  really  pale.  He  held  his  fingers 
on  the  great  sheet  of  blue  blotting-paper,  to 
which  he  pointed,  unsteadily. 

"  Upon  my  soul,  sir,"  said  Jason,  flushing 
and  then  paling  in  his  turn.  "  That  is  a  queer 
thing !  May  I  show  it  to  Mr.  Drayton  ?  " 

The  inspector  stepped  forward,  as  the  broker 


102  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

nodded;  and  examined   the  blotting-paper  at 
tentively. 

«.  'V'Ifc  is:  written  over,"  he  said  in  a  profes- 
, ;  , '  \  sioii&l;  tcme\  "  £rom  end  to  end.     I  see  that. 
It  is  written  with  one  name.     It  is  the  name 
of"  — 

"  Helen  !  "  interrupted  the  broker. 

"  Yes,"  replied  the  inspector.  "  Yes,  it  is  :' 
Helen ;  distinctly,  Helen.  Some  one  must 
have"  — 

But  I  stayed  to  hear  no  more.  What  some 
one  must  have  done,  I  sprang  and  left  the  live 
men  to  decide  —  as  live  men  do  decide  such 
things  —  among  themselves.  I  sprang,  and 
crying  :  "  Helen  !  Helen !  Helen  !  "  with  one 
bound  I  brushed  them  by,  and  fled  the  room, 
and  reached  the  outer  air  and  sought  for  her. 

As  nearly  as  one  can  characterize  the  emo 
tion  of  such  a  moment,  I  should  say  that  it  was 
/  one  of  mortal  intensity ;  perhaps  of  what  in 
living  men  we  should  call  maniac  intensity. 
Up  to  this  moment  I  could  not  be  said  to  have 
comprehended  the  effect  of  what  had  taken 
place  upon  my  wife. 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  103 

The  full  force  of  her  terrible  position  now 
struck  me  like  the  edge  of  a  weapon  with 
whose  sheath  I  had  been  idling. 

Hot  in  the  flame  of  my  anger  I  had  gone 
from  her ;  and  cold  indeed  had  I  returned. 
Her  I  had  left  dumb  before  my  cruel  tongue, 
but  dumb  was  that  which  had  come  back  to 
her  in  my  name. 

I  was  a  dead  man.  But  like  any  living  of 
them  all  —  oh,  more  than  any  living  —  I 
loved  my  wife.  I  loved  her  more  because  I 
had  been  cruel  to  her  than  if  I  had  been  kind. 
I  loved  her  more  because  we  had  parted  so 
bitterly  than  if  we  had  parted  lovingly.  I 
loved  her  more  because  I  had  died  than  if  I 
had  lived.  I  must  see  my  wife  !  I  must  find 
my  wife !  I  must  say  to  her  —  I  must  tell 
her —  Why,  who  in  all  the  world  but  me 
could  do  anything  for  Helen  now  ? 

Out  into  the  morning  air  I  rushed,  and  got 
the  breeze  in  my  face,  and  up  the  thronging 
street,  as  spirits  do,  unnoted  and  unknown  of 
men,  I  passed ;  solitary  in  the  throng,  silent 
in  the  outcry,  unsentient  in  the  press. 


104  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

The  sun  was  strong.  The  day  was  cool. 
The  dome  of  the  sky  hung  over  me,  too,  as 
over  those  who  raised  their  breathing  faces  to 
its  beauty.  I,  too,  saw,  as  I  fled  on,  that  the 
day  was  fair.  I  heard  the  human  voices  say  : 

"  What  a  morning  !  " 

"  It  puts  the  soul  into  you !  "  said  a  burly 
stock  speculator  to  a  railroad  treasurer ;  they 
stood  upon  the  steps  of  the  Exchange,  laugh 
ing,  as  I  brushed  by. 

"  It  makes  life  worth  while,"  said  a  healthy 
elderly  woman,  merrily,  making  the  crossing 
with  the  light  foot  that  a  light  heart  gives. 

"  It  makes  life  possible,"  replied  a  pale 
young  girl  beside  her,  coming  slowly  after. 

"  Poor  fellow  !  "  sighed  a  stranger  whom  I 
hit  in  hurrying  on.  "  It  was  an  ugly  way  to 
die.  Nice  air,  this  morning !  " 

"  He  will  be  a  loss  to  the  community,"  re 
plied  this  man's  companion.  "  There  is  n't  a 
doctor  in  town  who  has  his  luck  with  fevers. 
You  can't  convince  my  wife  he  did  n't  save  her 
life  last  winter.  Frost,  last  night,  was  n't 
there?  Very  invigorating  morning  !  " 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  105 

Now,  at  the  head  of  the  street  some  ladies 
were  standing,  waiting  for  a  car.  I  was  de 
layed  in  passing  them,  and  as  I  stepped  back 
to  change  my  course  I  saw  that  one  of  them 
was  speaking  earnestly  and  that  her  eyes 
showed  signs  of  weeping. 

"  He  would  n't  remember  me,"  she  said ; 
"  it  was  eleven  years  ago.  But  sick  women 
don't  forget  their  doctors.  He  was  as  kind  to 
me"  — 

"  Oh,  poor  Mrs.  Thome  !  "  a  soft  voice  an 
swered,  in  the  accented  tone  of  an  impulsive, 
tender-hearted  woman.  "  It 's  bad  enough  to 
be  a  patient.  But,  oh,  his  wife!  " 

"  Let  me  pass,  ladies !  "  I  cried,  or  tried  to 
cry,  forgetting,  in  the  anguish  which  their 
words  fanned  to  its  fiercest,  that  I  could  not 
be  heard  and  might  not  be  seen.  "  There 
seems  to  be  some  obstruction.  Let  me  by, 
for  I  am  in  mortal  haste !  " 

Obstruction  there  was,  alas !  but  it  was  not 
in  them  whom  I  would  have  entreated.  Ob 
struction  there  was,  but  of  what  nature  I  could 
not  and  I  cannot  testify.  While  I  had  the 


106  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

words  upon  my  lips,  even  as  the  group  of 
women  broke  and  left  a  space  about  me  while 
they  scattered  on  their  ways,  there  on  the  cor 
ner  of  the  thoroughfare,  in  the  heart  of  the 
town,  by  an  invisible  force,  by  an  inexplicable 
barrier,  I,  the  dead  man  fleeing  to  my  living 
wife,  was  beaten  back. 

Whence  came  that  awful  order?  How 
came  it  ?  And  wherefore  ?  I  knew  no  more 
than  the  November  wind  that  passed  me  by, 
and  went  upon  its  errand  as  it  listed. 

I  was  thrust  back  by  a  blast  of  Power  In 
calculable  ;  it  was  like  the  current  of  an  un 
known  natural  force  of  infinite  capability. 
Set  the  will  of  soul  and  body  as  I  would,  I 
could  not  pass  the  head  of  the  street. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

STRUGGLING  to  bear  the  fate  which  I  had 
met,  I  turned  as  manfully  as  I  might,  and  re 
traced  my  steps  down  the  thronging  street, 
within  whose  limits  I  now  learned  that  my 
freedom  was  confined.  It  was  a  sickening 
discovery.  I  had  been  a  man  of  will  so  devel 
oped  and  freedom  so  sufficient  that  helpless 
ness  came  upon  me  like  a  change  of  tempera 
ment  ;  it  took  the  form  of  hopelessness  almost 
at  once. 

What  was  death?  The  secret  of  life. 
What  knew  I  of  the  system  of  things  on  which 
a  blow  upon  the  head  had  ushered  me  all  un 
ready,  reluctant,  and  uninstructed  as  I  was? 
No  more  than  the  ruddiest  live  stockbroker  on 
the  street,  whose  blood  went  bounding,  that 
fresh  morning,  to  the  antics  of  the  Santa  Ma. 
I  was  not  accustomed  to  be  uninformed  ;  my 
ignorance  appalled  me.  Even  in  the  deeps 


108  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

of  my  misery,  I  found  space  for  a  sense  of 
humiliation  ;  I  felt  profoundly  mortified.  In 
that  spot,  in  that  way,  of  all  others,  why  was 
I  withheld  ?  Was  it  the  custom  of  the  black 
country  called  Death,  which  we  mark  "  unex 
plored  "  upon  the  map  of  life,  —  was  it  the 
habit  to  tie  a  man  to  the  place  where  he  had 
died  ?  But  this  was  not  the  spot  where  I  had 
died.  It  was  the  spot  where  I  had  learned 
that  I  had  died.  It  was  the  place  where  th<r 
consciousness  of  death  had  wrought  itself,  not 
upon  the  nerves  of  the  body,  but  upon  the 
faculties  of  the  mind.  I  had  been  dead  twelve 
hours  before  I  found  it  out. 

I  looked  up  and  down  the  street,  where  the 
living  men  scurried  to  and  fro  upon  their 
little  errands.  These  seemed  immeasurably 
small.  I  looked  upon  them  with  disgust. 
Fettered  to  that  pavement,  like  a  convict  to 
his  ball-and-chain,  I  passed  and  repassed  in 
wretchedness  whose  quality  I  cannot  express, 
and  would  not  if  I  could. 

"  I  am  punished,"  I  said  ;  "  I  am  punished 
for  that  which  I  have  done.  This  is  my  doom. 
I  am  imprisoned  here." 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  109 

Sometimes  I  broke  into  uncontrollable  mis 
ery,  crying  upon  my  wife's  dear  name.  Then 
I  would  hush  the  outbreak,  lest  some  one  over 
hear  me  ;  and  then  I  would  remember  that 
no  one  could  overhear.  I  looked  into  the 
faces  of  the  people  whom  I  met  and  passed, 
with  such  longings  for  one  single  sign  of 
recognition  as  are  not  to  be  described.  It 
even  occurred  to  me  that  among  them  all  one 
might  be  found  of  whom  my  love  and  grief 
and  will  might  make  a  messenger  to  Helen. 
But  I  found  none  such,  or  I  gained  no  such 
power ;  and,  sick  at  heart,  I  turned  away. 

Suddenly,  as  I  threaded  the  thick  of  the 
press,  beating  to  and  fro,  and  up  and  down,  as 
dead  leaves  move  before  the  wind,  some  one 
softly  touched  my  hand. 

It  was  the  St.  Bernard,  the  broker's  dog. 
This  time,  as  before,  he  looked  into  my  face 
with  signs  of  pleasure  or  of  pity,  or  of  both, 
and  made  as  if  he  would  caress  me. 

"  Lion !  "  I  cried,  "  you  know  me,  don't 
you  ?  Bless  you,  Lion  !  " 

Now,  at  the   dumb  thing's   recognition,  I 


110  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

could  have  wept  for  pleasure.  The  dog,  when 
I  spoke  to  him,  followed  me  ;  and  for  some 
time  walked  up  and  down  and  athwart  the 
street,  beside  me.  This  was  a  comfort  to  me. 
At  last  his  master  came  out  upon  the  sidewalk 
and  looked  for  him.  Brake  whistled  merrily, 
and  the  dog,  at  the  first  call,  went  bounding  in. 

Ordinary  writers  upon  usual  topics,  address 
ing  readers  of  their  own  condition,  have  their 
share  of  difficulties  ;  at  best  one  conquers  the 
art  of  expression  as  a  General  conquers  an 
enemy.  But  the  obstacles  which  present  them 
selves  to  the  recorder  of  this  narrative  are  such 
as  will  be  seen  at  once  to  have  peculiar  force. 
Almost  at  the  outset  they  dishearten  me.  How 
shall  I  tell  the  story  unless  I  be  understood  ? 
And  how  should  I  be  understood  if  I  told  the 
story?  Were  it  for  me,  a  man  miserable 
and  erring,  gone  to  his  doom  as  untrained  for 
its  consequences,  or  for  the  use  of  them,  as  a 
drayman  for  the  use  of  hypnotism  in  surgery, 
—  were  it  for  me  to  play  the  interpreter  be 
tween  life  and  death?  Were  it  for  me  to 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  Ill 

expect  to  be  successful  in  that  solemn  effort 
which  is  as  old  as  time,  and  as  hopeless  as  the 
eyes  of  mourners  ? 

What  shall  I  say  ?  It  is  willed  that  I  shall 
speak.  The  angel  said  unto  me :  Write. 
How  shall  I  obey,  who  am  the  most  unworthy 
of  any  soul  upon  whom  has  been  laid  the 
burden  of  the  higher  utterance  ?  Sacred  be 
the  task.  Would  that  its  sacredness  could  sanc 
tify  the  unfitness  of  him  who  here  fulfills  it. 

The  experience  which  I  have  already  nar 
rated  was  followed  by  an  indefinite  period  of 
great  misery.  How  long  I  remained  a  pris 
oner  in  that  unwelcome  spot  I  cannot  accu 
rately  tell. 

What  are  called  by  dwellers  in  the  body 
days  and  nights,  and  dawns  and  darks,  suc 
ceeded  each  other,  little  remarked  by  my 
wretchedness,  or  by  the  sense  of  remoteness 
from  these  things  which  now  began  to  grow 
upon  me.  The  life  of  what  we  call  a  spirit 
had  begun  for  me  in  the  form  of  a  moral  dislo 
cation.  The  wrench,  the  agony,  the  process  of 


112  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

setting  the  nature  under  its  new  conditions, 
took  place  in  due  order,  but  with  bitter  lag- 
gardness.  The  accident  of  death  did  not  heal 
in  my  soul  by  what  surgeons  call  "  the  first 
intention."  I  retained  for  a  long  time  the 
consciousness  of  being  an  injured  creature. 

As  I  paced  and  repaced  the  narrow  street 
where  the  money-makers  and  money-lovers  of 
the  town  jostled  and  thronged,  a  great  disgust 
descended  upon  me.  The  place,  the  springs 
of  conduct,  wearied  me,  something  in  the  man 
ner  that  an  educated  person  is  wearied  by  low 
conversation.  It  seemed  to  be  like  this :  — 
I  that  the  moral  motives  of  the  living  created 
the  atmosphere  of  the  dead  therein  confine^. 
It  was  as  if  I  inhaled  the  coarse  friction,  the 
low  aspiration,  the  feverishness,  the  selfish 
ness,  the  dishonor,  that  the  getting  of  gain, 
when  it  became  the  purpose  of  life,  involved. 
I  experienced  a  sense  of  being  stifled,  and 
breathed  with  difficulty ;  much  as  those  live 
men  would  have  done,  if  the  gas-pipes  had 
burst  in  the  street. 

It  did  not  detract  from  this  feeling  of  as- 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  113 

phyxia  that  I  was  aware  of  having,  to  a  cer 
tain  extent,  shared  the  set  of  moral  compounds 
which  I  now  found  resolved  to  their  elements, 
by  the  curious  chemistry  of  death. 

I  had  loved  money  and  the  getting  of 
money,  as  men  of  the  world,  and  of  success  in 
it,  are  apt  to  do.  I  was  neither  better  nor 
worse  than  others  of  my  sort.  I  had  specu 
lated  with  the  profits  of  my  profession,  idly 
enough,  but  hotly,  too,  at  times.  I  had  told 
myself  that  I  did  this  out  of  anxiety  for  the 
future  of  my  family.  I  had  viewed  myself  in 
the  light  of  the  model  domestic  man,  who 
guards  his  household  against  an  evil  day.  It 
had  never  occurred  to  me  to  classify  myself 
with  the  mere  money-changers,  into  whose  at 
mosphere  I  had  elected  to  put  myself. 

Now,  as  I  glided  in  and  out  among  them, 
unseen,  unheard,  unrecognized,  a  spirit  among 
their  flesh,  there  came  upon  me  a  humiliating 
sense  of  my  true  relation  to  them.  Was  it 
thus,  I  said,  or  so  f  Did  I  this  or  that  ?  Was 
the  balance  of  motives  so  disproportionate 
after  all?  Was  there  so  little  love  of  wife 


114  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

and  child  ?  So  much  of  self  and  gain  ?  Was 
the  item  of  the  true  so  small  ?  The  sum  of 
the  false  so  large?  Had  I  been  so  much 
less  that  was  noble,  so  much  more  that  was 
low? 

I  mingled  with  the  mass  of  haggard  men  at 
a  large  stock  auction  which  half  the  street  at 
tended.  The  panic  had  spread.  Sleeplessness 
and  anxiety  had  carved  the  crowding  faces 
with  hard  chisels.  The  shouts,  the  scramble, 
the  oaths,  the  clinched  hands,  the  pitiful  push 
ing,  affected  me  like  a  dismal  spectacular  play 
on  some  barbarian  stage.  How  shall  I  express 
the  sickening  aspect  of  the  scene  to  a  man  but 
newly  dead  ? 

The  excitement  waxed  with  the  morning. 
The  old  and  placid  Santa  Ma  throbbed  like 
any  little  road  of  yesterday.  The  stock  had 
gained  32  points  in  ten  minutes,  and  down 
again,  and  up  again  to  Heaven  knows  what. 
Men  ran  from  despair  to  elation,  and  behaved 
like  maniacs  in  both.  Men  who  were  gentle 
men  at  home  turned  savages  here.  Men  who 
were  honorable  in  society  turned  sharpers  here. 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  115 

Madness  had  them,  as  I  watched  them.  A 
kind  of  pity  for  them  seized  me.  I  glided  in 
among  them,  and  lifted  my  whole  heart  to 
stay  them  if  I  could.  I  stretched  the  hands 
that  no  one  saw.  I  raised  the  voice  that  none 
could  hear. 

"  Gentlemen  !  "  I  cried,  "  count  me  the 
market  value  of  it  —  on  the  margin  of  two 
lives  !  By  the  bonds  wherewith  you  bind  your 
selves  you  shall  be  bound !  .  .  .  What  is  the 
sum  of  wealth  represented  within  these  walls 
to-day  ?  Name  it  to  me.  .  .  .  The  whole  of 
it,  for  the  power  to  leave  this  place !  The 
whole  of  it,  the  whole  of  it,  for  one  half -hour 
in  a  dead  man's  desolated  home  !  A  hundred 
fold  the  whole  of  it  for  "  — 

But  here  I  lost  command  of  myself,  and 
fleeing  from  the  place  where  my  presence  and 
my  misery  and  my  entreaty  alike  were  lost 
upon  the  attention  of  the  living  throng  as 
were  the  elements  of  the  air  they  breathed,  I 
rushed  into  the  outer  world  again  ;  there  to 
wander  up  and  down  the  street,  and  hate  the 
place,  and  hate  myself  for  being  there,  and 


116  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

hate  the  greed  of  gain  I  used  to  love,  and  hate 
myself  for  having  loved  it ;  and  yet  to  know 
that  I  was  forced  to  act  as  if  I  loved  it  still, 
and  to  be  the  ghost  before  the  ghost  of  a  de 
sire. 

"  It  is  my  doom,"  I  said.  "  I  am  punished. 
I  am  fastened  to  this  worldly  spot,  and  to  this 
awful  way  of  being  dead." 

Now,  while  I  spoke  these  words,  I  came,  in 
the  stress  of  my  wretchedness,  fleeing  to  the 
head  of  the  street;  and  there,  I  cannot  tell 
you  how,  I  cannot  answer  why,  as  the  arrow 
springs  from  the  bow,  or  the  conduct  from  the 
heart,  or  the  spirit  from  the  flesh,  —  in  one 
blessed  instant  I  knew  that  I  was  free  to 
leave  the  spot,  and  crying,  "  Helen,  Helen !  " 
broke  from  it. 


CHAPTER    X. 

BUT  no.  Alas,  no,  no !  I  was  and  was  not 
free.  All  my  soul  turned  toward  her,  but 
something  stronger  than  my  soul  constrained 
me.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  longed  for  her 
with  such  longing  as  might  have  killed  a  live 
man,  or  might  have  made  a  dead  one  live  again. 
This  emotion  added  much  to  my  suffering,  but 
nothing  to  my  power  to  turn  one  footstep^  toward 
her  or  to  lift  my  helpless  face  in  her  direction. 
It  was  not  permitted  to  me.  It  was  not  willed. 

Now  this,  which  might  in  another  tempera 
ment  have  produced  a  sense  of  fear  or  of  desire 
to  placate  the  unknown  Force  which  overruled 
me,  created  in  me  at  first  a  stinging  rage. 
This  is  the  truth,  and  the  truth  I  tell. 

In  my  love  and  misery,  and  the  shock  of 
this  disappointment  —  against  the  unknown 
opposition  to  my  will,  I  turned  and  raved ; 
even  as  when  I  was  a  man  among  men  I 


118  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

should  have  raved  at  him  who  dared  my  pur 
pose. 

"  You  are  playing  with  me ! "  I  wailed. 
"You  torture  a  miserable  man.  Who  and 
what  are  you,  that  make  of  death  a  bitterer 
thing  than  life  can  guess?  Show  me  what  I 
have  to  fight,  and  let  me  wrestle  for  my 
liberty,  —  though  I  am  a  ghost,  let  me  wrestle 
like  a  man !  Let  me  to  my  wife !  Give  way, 
and  let  me  seek  her !  " 

Shocking  and  foreign  as  words  like  these 
must  be  to  many  of  those  who  read  these 
pages,  it  must  be  remembered  that  they 
were  uttered  by  pne  to  whom  faith  and  the 
knowledge  that  comes  by  way  of  it  were  the 
leaves  of  an  abandoned  text-book.  For  so 
many  years  had  the  tenets  of  the  Christian  re 
ligion  been  put  out  of  my  practical  life,  even  as 
I  put  aside  the  opinions  of  the  laity  concerning 
the  treatment  of  disease,  that  I  do  not  over 
emphasize  ;  I  speak  the  simplest  truth  in  say 
ing  that  my  first  experience  of  death  had  not 
in  any  sense  revived  the  vividness  of  lost  belief 
to  me.  As  the  old  life  had  ended  had  the  new 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  119 

begun.  Where  the  tree  had  fallen  it  did  lie. 
What  was  habit  before  death  was  habit  after. 
What  was  natural  then  was  natural  now. 
What  I  loved  living  I  loved  dead.  That 
which  interested  Emserald  Thome  the  man  \y 
interested  Esmerald  Thorne  the  spirit.  The 
incident  of  death  had  raised  the  temperature 
of  intellect ;  it  had,  perhaps  I  may  say,  by  this 
time  quickened  the  pulse  of  conscience ;  but  it 
had  in  no  wise  wrought  any  miracle  upon  me, 
nor  created  a  religious  believer  out  of  a  worldly 
and  indifferent  man  of  science.  Dying  had 
not  forthwith  made  me  a  devout  person.  In 
credible  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  the  truth  that 
up  to  this  time  I  had  not,  since  the  moment  of 
dissolution,  put  to  myself  the  solemn  queries 
concerning  my  present  state  which  occupy  the 
imaginations  of  the  living  so  much,  while  yet 
death  is  a  fact  remote  from  their  experience. 

It  was  the  habit  of  long  years  with  me,  after 
the  manner  of  my  kind,  to  settle  all  hard  ques 
tions  by  a  few  elastic  phrases,  which,  once 
learned,  are  curiously  pliable  to  the  intellectual 
touch.  "  Phenomena,"  for  instance,  — how 


120  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

plastic  to  cover  whatever  one  does  not  under 
stand  !  "  Law,"  —  how  ready  to  explain  away 
the  inexplicable !  Up  to  this  point  death  had 
struck  me  as  a  most  unfortunate  phenomenon. 
Its  personal  disabilities  I  found  it  easy  to  at 
tribute  to  some  natural  law  with  which  my  pre 
vious  education  had  left  me  unfamiliar.  Now, 
standing  baffled  there  in  that  incredible  manner, 
half  of  tragedy,  half  of  the  absurd,  —  even  the 
petty  element  of  the  undignified  in  the  position 
adding  to  my  distress,  —  a  houseless,  homeless, 
outcast  spirit,  struck  still  in  the  heart  of  that 
great  town,  where  in  hundreds  of  homes  was 
weeping  for  me,  where  I  was  beloved  and 
honored  and  bemoaned,  and  where  my  own  wife 
at  that  hour  broke  her  heart  with  sorrow  for 
me  and  for  the  manner  of  my  parting  from 
her,  —  then  and  there  to  be  beaten  back,  and 
battered  down,  and  tossed  like  an  atom  in  some 
primeval  flood,  whithersoever  I  would  not, — 
what  a  situation  was  this  ! 

Now,  indeed,  I  think  for  the  first  time,  my 
soul  lifted  itself,  as  a  sick  man  lifts  himself 
upon  his  elbows,  in  his  painful  bed.  Now, 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN,  121 

flashing  straight  back  upon  the  outburst  of  my 
defiance  and  despair,  like  the  reflex  action  of 
a  strong  muscle,  there  came  into  my  mind,  if 
not  into  my  heart,  these  impulsive  and  entreat 
ing  words :  — 

"  What  art  Thou,  who  dost  withstand  me  ? 
I  am  a  dead  and  helpless  man.  What  wouldst 
Thou  with  me?  Where  gainest  Thou  Thy 
force  upon  me  ?  Art  Thou  verily  that  ancient 
Myth  which  we  were  wont  to  call  Almighty 
God  ?  " 

Simultaneously  with  the  utterance  of  these 
words  that  blast  of  Will  to  which  I  ,have  re 
ferred  fell  heavily  upon  me.  A  Power  not 
myself  overshadowed  me  and  did  environ  me. 
Guided  whithersoever  I  would  not,  I  passed 
forth  upon  errands  all  unknown  to  me,  rebel 
ling  and  obeying  as  I  went. 

"  I  am  become  what  we  used  to  call  a  spirit," 
I  thought,  bitterly,  "  and  this  is  what  it  means. 
Better  might  one  become  a  molecule,  for  those, 
at  least,  obey  the  laws  of  the  universe,  and  do 
not  suffer." 

Now,  as  I  took  my  course,  it  being  ordered 


122  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

on  me,  it  led  me  past  the  door  of  a  certain 
open  church,  whence  the  sound  of  singing  is 
sued.  The  finest  choir  in  the  city,  famous  far 
and  near,  were  practicing  for  the  Sunday  ser 
vice,  and  singing  like  the  sons  of  God,  indeed, 
as  I  passed  by.  With  the  love  of  the  scien 
tific  temperament  for  harmony  alert  in  me,  I 
lingered  to  listen  to  the  anthem  which  these 
singers  were  rendering  in  their  customary 
great  manner.  With  the  instinct  of  the  mu 
sically  educated,  I  felt  pleasure  in  this  singing, 
and  said :  — 

"  Magnificently  done !  "  as  I  went  on.  It 
was  some  moments  before  the  words  which 
the  choir  sang  assumed  any  vividness  in  my 
mind.  When  they  did  I  found  that  they  were 
these  :  — 

"For  God  is  a  Spirit.  God  is  a  S2)irit ; 
and  they  that  worship  Him  must  worship 
Him  in  spirit "  — 

Now  it  fell  out  that  my  steps  were  directed 
to  the  hospital ;  and  to  the  hospital  I  straight 
way  went.  I  experienced  some  faint  comfort 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  123 

at  this  improvement  in  my  lot,  and  hurried 
up  the  avenue  and  up  the  steps  and  into  the 
familiar  wards  with  eagerness.  All  the  im 
pulses  of  the  healer  were  alive  in  me.  I  felt  it 
a  mercy  for  my  nature  to  be  at  its  own  again. 
I  hastened  in  among  my  sick  impetuously. 

The  hospital  had  been  a  favorite  project  of 
mine ;  from  its  start,  unreasonably  dear  to  me. 
Through  the  mounting  difficulties  which  block 
ade  such  enterprises,  I  had  hewn  and  hacked, 
I  had  fathered  and  doctored,  I  had  trusteed 
and  collected,  I  had  subscribed  and  directed 
and  persisted  and  prophesied  and  fulfilled,  as 
one  ardent  person  must  in  most  humanitarian 
successes ;  and  I  had  loved  the  success  accord 
ingly.  I  do  not  think  it  had  ever  once  oc 
curred  to  me  to  question  myself  as  to  the 
chemical  proportions  of  my  motives  in  this 
great  and  popular  charity.  Now,  as  I  entered 
the  familiar  place,  some  query  of  this  nature 
did  indeed  occupy  my  mind ;  it  had  the 
strangeness  of  all  mental  experiences  conse 
quent  upon  my  new  condition,  and  somewhat, 
if  I  remember,  puzzled  me. 


124  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

The  love  of  healing  ?  The  relief  of  suffer 
ing  ?  Sympathy  with  the  wretched  ?  Chiv 
alry  for  the  helpless  ?  Generosity  to  the  poor  ? 
Friendship  to  the  friendless  ?  Were  these  the 
motives,  all  the  motives,  the  whole  motives,  of 
him  who  had  in  my  name  ministered  in  that 
place  so  long  ?  Even  the  love  of  science  ? 
Devotion  to  a  therapeutic  creed  ?  Sacrifice  for 
a  surgical  doctrine?  Enthusiasm  for  an  im 
portant  professional  cause?  Did  these,  and 
only  these,  sources  of  conduct  explain  the 
great  hospital  ?  Or  the  surgeon  who  had  cre 
ated  and  sustained  it  ? 

Where  did  the  motive  deteriorate  ?  Where 
did  the  alloy  come  in  ?  How  did  the  sensi 
tiveness  to  self,  the  passion  for  fame,  the  joy 
of  power,  amalgamate  with  all  that  noble  feel 
ing?  How  much  residuum  was  there  in  the 
solution  of  that  absorption  which  (outside  of 
my  own  home)  I  had  thought  the  purest  and 
highest  of  my  interests  in  life  ? 

For  the  first  of  all  the  uncounted  times  that 
I  had  entered  the  hospital  for  now  these  many 
years,  I  crossed  the  threshold  questioning  my- 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  125 

self  in  this  manner,  and  doubting  of  my  fitness 
to  be  there,  or  to  be  what  I  had  been  held  to 
be  in  that  place.  Life  had  carried  me  gayly 
and  swiftly,  as  it  carries  successful  men.  I 
had  found  no  time,  or  made  none,  to  cross- 
question  the  sources  of  conduct.  'My  success 
had  been  my  religion. 

I  had  the  conviction  of  a  prosperous  person 
that  the  natural  emotions  of  prosperity  were 
about  right.  Added  to  this  was  something  of 
the  physician's  respect  for  what  was  healthful 
in  human  life.  Good  luck,  good  looks,  good 
nerves,  a  good  income,  an  enviable  reputation 
for  professional  skill,  personal  popularity,  and 
private  happiness,  —  these  things  had  struck 
me  as  so  wholesome  that  they  must  be  admi 
rable.  Behind  the  painted  screen  which  a  use 
ful  and  successful  career  sets  before  the  souls 
of  men  I  had  been  too  busy  or  too  light  of 
heart  to  peer.  Now  it  was  as  if,  in  the  act  or 
the  fact  of  dying,  I  had  moved  a  step  or  two, 
and  looked  over  the  edge  of  the  bright  shield. 

Thoughts  like  these  came  to  me  so  quietly 
and  so  naturally,  now,  that  I  wondered  why  I 


126  TOE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

had  not  been  familiar  with  them  before;  it 
even  occurred  to  me  that  being  very  busy  did 
not  wholly  excuse  a  live  man  for  not  thinking ; 
and  it  was  something  in  the  softened  spirit  of 
this  strange  humility  that  I  opened  the  noise 
less  door,  and  found  myself  among  my  old 
patients  in  the  large  ward. 

Never  before  had  I  entered  that  sad  place 
that  the  electric  thrill  of  welcome,  which  only 
a  physician  knows,  had  not  pulsated  through 
it,  preceding  me,  from  end  to  end  of  the  long 
room.  The  peculiar  lighting  of  the  ward  that 
flashes  with  the  presence  of  a  favorite  doctor ; 
the  sudden  flexible  smile  on  pain  -  pinched 
lips ;  the  yearning  motion  of  the  eyes  in  some 
helpless  body  where  only  the  eyes  can  stir; 
the  swift  stretching-out  of  wasted  hands ;  the 
half-inaudible  cry  of  welcome :  **  The  doctor  *s 
come!"  "  Oh,  there 's  the  doctor !"  "Why, 
it 's  the  doctor  !  "  —  the  loving  murmur  of  my 
name ;  the  low  prayer  of  blessing  on  it, —  oh, 
never  before  had  I  entered  my  hospital,  and 
missed  the  least  of  these. 

I  thought  I  was  prepared  for  this,  but  it 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  127 

was  not  without  a  shock  that  I  stood  among 
my  old  patients,  mute  and  miserable,  glancing 
piteonsly  at  them,  as  they  had  so  often  done 
at  me;  seeking  for  their  recognition,  which 
I  might  not  have ;  longing  for  their  welcome, 
which  was  not  any  more  for  me. 

The  moans  of  pain,  the  querulous  replies  to 
nurses,  the  weary  cough  or  plethoric  breath 
ing,  the  feeble  convalescent  laughter,  —  these 
greeted  me;  and  only  these.  Like  the  light 
that  entered  at  the  window,  or  the  air  that  cir 
culated  through  the  ward,  I  passed  unnoticed 
and  unthanked.  Some  one  called  ouf  petu 
lantly  that  a  door  had  got  unfastened,  and 
bade  a  nurse  go  shut  it,  for  it  blew  on  her. 
But  when  I  came  up  to  the  bedside  of  this 
poor  woman,  I  saw  that  she  was  crying. 

a  She 's  cried  herself  half-dead,"  a  nurse 
said,  complainingly.  "  Nobody  can  stop  her. 
She's  taking  on  so  for  Dr.  Thome." 

"I  don't  blame  her,"  said  a  little  patient 
from  a  wheeled-chair.  u  Everybody  knows 
what  he  did  for  her.  She 's  got  one  of  her  at 
tacks,  —  and  look  at  her !  There  can't  any- 


128  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

body  but  him  stop  it.  Whatever  we  're  going 
to  do  without  the  doctor  "  — 

Her  own  lip  quivered,  though  she  was  get 
ting  well. 

"  I  don't  see  how  the  doctor  could  die !  " 
moaned  the  very  sick  woman,  weeping  afresh, 
"  when  there  's  those  that  nobody  but  him  can 
keep  alive.  It  had  n't  oughter  to  be  let  to  be. 
How  are  sick  folks  going  to  get  along  without 
their  doctor  ?  It  ain't  right !  " 

"Lord  have  mercy  on  ye,  poor  creetur," 
said  an  old  lady  from  the  opposite  cot.  "  Don't 
take  on  so.  It  don't  help  it  any.  It  ain't 
agoing  to  bring  the  doctor  back  !  " 

Sobs  arose  at  this.  I  could  hear  them  from 
more  beds  than  I  cared  to  count.  Sorrow  sat 
heavily  in  the  ward  for  my  sake.  It  distressed 
me  to  think  of  the  effect  of  all  this  depression 
upon  the  nervous  systems  of  these  poor  people. 
I  passed  from  case  to  case,  and  watched  the  ill- 
effects  of  the  general  gloom  with  a  sense  of 
professional  disappointment  which  only  physi 
cians  will  understand  as  coming  uppermost  in 
a  man's  mind  under  circumstances  such  as 
these. 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  129 

My  discomfort  was  increased  by  the  evi 
dences  of  what  I  considered  mistakes  in  treat 
ment  on  the  part  of  my  colleagues ;  some  of 
which  had  peculiarly  disagreed  with  certain 
patients  since  my  death  had  thrown  them  into 
other  hands.  My  helplessness  before  these 
facts  chafed  me  sorely. 

I  made  no  futile  effort  to  make  myself 
known  to  any  of  the  hospital  patients.  I 
had  learned  too  well  the  limitations  of  my  new 
condition  now.  I  had  in  no  wise  learned  to 
bear  them.  In  truth,  I  think  I  bore  them 
less  well,  for  my  knowledge  that  these  poor 
creatures  did  truly  love  me,  and  leaned  on 
me,  and  mourned  for  me  ;  I  found  it  hard. 
I  think  it  even  occurred  to  me  that  a  dead 
man  might  not  be  able  to  bear  it  to  see  his 
wife  and  child. 

"  Doctor ! "  said  a  low,  sweet  voice,  "  Doc 
tor?" 

My  heart  leaped  within  me,  as  I  turned. 
Where  was  the  highly  organized  one  of  all 
my  patients,  who  had  baffled  death  for  love 
of  me?  Who  had  the  clairvoyance  or  clair- 


130  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

audience,  or  the  wonderful  tip  in  the  scale 
of  health  and  disease,  which  causes  such  phe 
nomena  ? 

With  hungry  eyes  I  gazed  from  cot  to  cot. 
No  answering  gaze  returned  to  me.  Craving 
their  recognition  more  sorely  than  they  had 
ever,  in  the  old  life,  craved  mine,  in  such  need 
of  their  sympathy  as  never  had  the  weakest  of 
the  whole  of  them  for  mine,  I  scanned  them 
all.  No  —  no.  There  was  not  a  patient  in 
the  ward  who  knew  me.  No. 

Stung  with  the  disappointment,  I  sank  into 
a  chair  beside  the  weeping  woman's  bed,  and 
bowed  my  face  upon  my  hands.  At  this  in 
stant  I  was  touched  upon  the  shoulder. 

"  Doctor  ?  Why,  Doctor !  "  said  the  voice 
again. 

I  sprang  and  caught  the  speaker  by  the 
hands.  It  was  Mrs.  Faith.  She  stood  beside 
me,  sweet  and  smiling. 

"  The  carriage  overturned,"  she  said  in  her 
quiet  way,  "I  was  badly  hurt.  I  only  died 
an  hour  ago.  I  started  out  at  once  to  find 
you.  I  want  you  to  see  Charley.  Charley 's 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  131 

still  alive.  Those  doctors  don't  understand 
Charley.  There  's  nobody  I  'd  trust  him  to 
but  you.  You  can  save  him.  Come !  You 
can't  think  how  he  asked  for  you,  and  cried 
for  you.  ...  I  thought  I  should  find  you  at 
the  hospital.  Come  quickly,  Doctor !  Come!" 


CHAPTER  XI. 

SOME  homesick  traveler  in  a  foreign  land, 
where  he  is  known  of  none  and  can  neither 
speak  nor  understand  the  language  of  the 
country ;  taken  ill,  let  us  say,  at  a  remote  inn, 
his  strength  and  credit  gone,  and  he,  in  pain 
and  fever,  hears,  one  blessed  day,  the  voice  of 
an  old  friend  in  the  court  below.  Such  a  man 
may  think  he  has  —  but  I  doubt  if  he  have  — 
some  crude  conception  of  the  state  of  feeling 
in  which  I  found  myself,  when  recognized  in 
this  touching  manner  by  my  old  patient. 

My  emotion  was  so  great  that  I  could  not 
conceal  it ;  and  she,  in  her  own  quick  and 
delicate  way,  perceiving  this  almost  before  I 
did,  myself,  made  as  if  she  saw  it  not,  and 
lightly  adding : 

"  Hurry,  Doctor !  I  will  go  before  you. 
Let  us  lose  no  time !  "  led  me  at  once  out  of 
the  hospital,  and  rapidly  away. 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  133 

In  an  incredibly,  almost  confusingly  short 
space  of  time,  we  reached  her  house ;  this 
was  done  by  some  method  of  locomotion  not 
hitherto  experienced  by  me,  and  which  I 
should,  at  that  time,  have  found  it  difficult 
to  describe,  unless  by  saying  that  she  thought 
us  where  we  wished  to  be.  Perhaps  it  would 
be  more  exact  to  say,  She  felt  us.  It  was  as 
if  the  great  power  of  the  mother's  love  in  her, 
had  become  a  new  bodily  faculty  by  which  she 
was  able,  with  extraordinary  disregard  of  the 
laws  of  distance,  to  move  herself  and  to  draw 
another  to  the  suffering  child.  I  should  say 
that  I  perceived  at  once,  in  the  presence  of 
this  sweet  woman,  that  there  were  possibilities 
and  privileges  in  the  state  immediately  suc 
ceeding  death,  which  had  been  utterly  denied 
to-  me,  and  were  still  unknown  to  me.  It  was 
easy  to  see  that  her  personal  experience  in  the 
new  condition  differed  as  much  from  mine  as 
our  lives  had  differed  in  the  time  preceding 
death.  She  had  been  a  patient,  unworldly, 
and  devout  sufferer ;  a  chronic  invalid,  who 
bore  her  lot  divinely.  Her  soul  had  been 


134  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

as  full  of  trust  and  gentleness,  of  the  forget 
ting  of  self  and  the  service  of  others,  of  the 
sqorn  of  pain,  and  of  what  she  called  trust  in 
Heaven,  as  any  woman's  soul  could  be. 

I  had  never  seen  the  moment  when  I  could 
withhold  my  respect  from  the  devout  nature 
of  Mrs.  Faith,  any  more  than  I  could  from 
her  manner  of  enduring  suffering ;  or,  I  might 
add,  if  I  could  expect  the  remark  to  be  prop 
erly  understood,  —  from  her  strong  and  in 
telligent  trust  in  me.  Physicians  know  what 
sturdy  qualities  it  takes  to  make  a  good 
patient.  Perhaps  they  are,  to  some  extent, 
the  same  which  go  to  make  a  good  believer ; 
but  in  this  direction  I  am  less  informed. 

During  our  passage  from  the  hospital  to 
the  house,  Mrs.  Faith  had  not  spoken  to  me ; 
her  whole  being  seemed,  so  nearly  as  I  could 
understand  it,  to  be  absorbed  in  the  process  of 
getting  there.  It  struck  me  that  she  was  still 
unpracticed  in  the  use  of  a  new  and  remark 
able  faculty,  which  required  strict  attention 
from  her,  like  any  other  as  yet  unlearned  art. 

"  You  are  not  turned  out  of  your  own  home 
• 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  135 

it  seems  !  "  I  exclaimed  impulsively,  as  we 
entered  the  house  together. 

"Oh,  no,  710 /"  she  cried.  "Who  is? 
Who  could  be  ?  Why,  Doctor,  are  you  ?  " 

"  Death  is  a  terrible  respecter  of  persons,'* 
I  answered  drearily.  I  could  not  further  ex 
plain  myself  at  that  moment. 

"  I  have  been  away  from  Charley  a  good 
while,"  she^  anxiously  replied  ;  "  it  is  the  first 
time  I  have  left  him  since  I  died.  But  I  had 
to  find  you,  Doctor.  Charley  should  not  die  — 
I  can't  have  Charley  die  —  for  his  poor  father's 
sake.  But  I  feel  quite  safe  about  him>  now  I 
have  got  you." 

She  said  these  words  in  her  old  bright,  trust 
ful  way.  The  thought  of  my  helplessness  to 
justify  such  trust  smote  me  sorely ;  but  I  said 
nothing  then  to  undeceive  her,  —  how  could  I  ? 
—  and  we  made  haste  together  to  the  bedside 
of  the  injured  child. 

I  saw  at  a  glance  that  the  child  was  in  a  bad 
case.  Halt  was  there,  and  Dr.  Gazell ;  they 
were  consulting  gloomily.  The  father,  haggard 
with  his  first  bereavement,  seemed  to  have  ac- 


136  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

cepted  the  second  as  a  foregone  conclusion ;  he 
sat  with  his  face  in  his  hands,  beside  the  little 
fellow's  bed.  The  boy  called  for  his  mother  at 
intervals.  A  nurse  hung  about  weeping.  It 
was  a  dismal  scene ;  there  was  not  a  spark  of 
hope,  or  energy,  or  fight  in  the  whole  room.  I 
cried  out  immoderately  that  it  was  enough  to 
kill  the  well,  and  protested  against  the  manage 
ment  of  the  case  with  the  ardent  conviction  to 
which  my  old  patient  was  so  used,  and  in  which 
she  believed  more  thoroughly  than  I  did  my 
self.  "  They  are  giving  the  wrong  remedy,"  I 
hotly  said.  "  This  surgical  fever  could  be  con 
trolled,  —  the  boy  need  not  die.  But  he  will ! 
You  may  as  well  make  up  your  mind  to  it, 
Mrs.  Faith.  Gazell  does  n't  understand  the 
little  fellow's  constitution,  and  Halt  doesn't 
understand  anything." 

Now  it  was  that,  as  I  had  expected,  the 
mother  turned  upon  me  with  all  a  mother's 
hopeless  and  heart-breaking  want  of  logic. 
Surely,  I,  and  only  I,  could  save  the  boy.  Why, 
I  had  always  taken  care  of  Charley  !  Was  it 
possible  that  I  could  stand  by  and  see  Charley 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  137 

die  ?  She  should  not  have  died  herself  if  I 
had  been  there.  She  depended  upon  me  to 
find  some  way  —  there  must  be  a  way.  She 
never  thought  I  was  the  kind  of  a  man  to  be 
so  changed  by  —  by  what  had  happened. 

I  used  to  be  so  full  of  hope  and  vigor,  and 
so  inventive  in  a  sick-room.  It  was  not  reason 
able  !  It  was  not  right !  It  was  not  possible 
that,  just  because  I  was  a  spirit,  I  could  not 
control  the  minds  or  bodies  of  those  live 
men  who  were  so  inferior  to  me.  Why,  she 
thought  I  could  control  <m?/body.  She  thought 
I  could  conquer  anything. 

"  I  don't  understand  it,  Doctor,"  she  said, 
with  something  like  reproach.  "You  don't 
seem  to  be  able  to  do  as  much  —  you  don't 
even  know  as  much  as  /  do,  now.  And  you 
know  what  a  sick  and  helpless  little  woman 
I  've  always  been,  —  how  ignorant,  beside  you ! 
I  thought  you  were  so  wise,  so  strong,  so  great. 
Where  has  it  all  gone  to,  Doctor?  What 
has  become  of  your  wisdom  and  your  power  ? 
Can't  you  help  me  ?  Can't  you  "  — 

"  I  can  do  nothing,"  I  interrupted  her,  — 


I 


138  TEE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

"  nothing.  I  am  shorn  of  it  all.  It  has  all 
gone  from  me,  like  the  strength  of  Samson. 
Spare  me,  and  torment  me  not.  ...  I  cannot 
heal  your  child.  I  am  not  like  you.  I  was  not 
prepared  for  —  this  condition  of  things.  I 
did  not  expect  to  die.  I  never  thought  of  be 
coming  a  spirit.  I  find  myself  extraordinarily 
embarrassed  by  it.  It  is  the  most  unnatural 
state  I  ever  was  in." 

"  Why,  I  find  it  as  natural  as  life,"  she 
said  more  gently.  She  had  now  moved  to  the 
bedside,  and  taken  the  little  fellow  in  her  arms. 

"You  are  not  as  I,"  I  replied  morosely. 
"We  differed — and  we  differ.  Truly,  I  be 
lieve  that  if  there  is  anything  to  be  done  for 
your  boy,  it  rests  with  you,  and  not  with  me." 

Halt  and  Gazell  were  now  consulting  in  an 
undertone,  touching  the  selection  of  a  certain 
remedy ;  no  one  noticed  them,  and  they  droned 
on. 

The  mother  crooned  over  the  child,  and  ca 
ressed  him,  and  breathed  upon  his  sunken 
little  face,  and  poured  her  soul  out  over  him  in 
precious  floods  and  wastes  of  tenderness  as 
mothers  do. 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  139 

"  Live,  my  little  son !  "  she  whispered. 
"  Live,  live  !  " 

But  I,  meanwhile,  was  watching  the  two 
physicians  miserably.  "  There  !  "  I  said, 
"  they  have  dropped  the  phial  on  the  floor. 
See,  that  is  the  one  they  ought  to  have. 
It  rolled  away.  They  don't  mean  to  take  it. 
They  will  give  him  the  wrong  thing.  Oh,  how 
can  they  ?  " 

But  now  the  mother,  when  she  heard  me 
speak,  swiftly  and  gently  removed  her  arms 
from  beneath  the  boy,  and,  advancing  to  the 
hesitating  men,  stood  silently  between  them, 
and  laid  a  hand  upon  the  arm  of  each.    While  x 
she  stood  there  she  had  a  rapt,  high  look  of  j 
such  sort  that  I   could  in  no  wise  have  ad-/ 
dressed  her. 

"  Are  you  sure,  Dr.  Gazell?  "  asked  Halt. 

"  I  think  so,"  said  Gazell. 

He  stooped,  after  a  moment's  hesitation,  and 
picked  up  the  phial  from  the  floor,  read  its 
label;  laid  it  down,  looked  at  the  child,  and 
hesitated  again. 

The  mother  at  this  juncture  sunk  upon  her 


140  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

knees  and  bowed  her  shining  face.  I  thought 
she  seemed  to  be  at  prayer.  I  too  bowed  my 
head  ;  but  it  was  for  reverence  at  the  sight  of 
her.  It  was  long  since  I  had  prayed.  I  did 
not  find  it  natural  to  do  so.  A  strange  discon 
tent,  something  almost  like  an  inclination  to 
prayer,  came  upon  me.  But  that  was  all.  I 
would  rather  have  had  the  power  to  turn  those 
two  men  out  of  the  room,  and  pour  the  saving 
remedy  upon  my  little  patient's  burning  tongue 
with  my  own  flesh-and-blood  fingers,  and  a 
hearty  objurgation  on  the  professional  blunder 
which  I  had  come  in  time  to  rectify. 

"Dr.  Halt,''  said  Dr.  Gazell  slowly,  "with 
your  approval  I  think  I  will  change  my  mind. 
On  the  whole,  the  indications  point  to  —  this. 
I  trust  it  is  the  appropriate  remedy." 

He  removed  the  cork  from  the  phial  as  he 
spoke,  and,  rising,  passed  quickly  to  the  bed 
side  of  the  child. 

The  mother  had  now  arisen  from  her  knees, 
and  followed  him,  and  got  her  arms  about  the 
boy  again,  and  set  her  soul  to  brooding  over 
him  in  the  way  that  loving  women  have.  I 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  141 

was  of  no  further  service  to  her,  and  I  had 
vanished  from  her  thought,  which  had  no  more 
room  at  that  moment  for  anything  except  the 
child  than  the  arms  with  which  she  clasped 
him. 

It  amazed  me  —  I  was  going  to  say  it  ap 
palled  me  —  that  no  person  in  the  room  should 
seem  to  have  consciousness  of  her  presence. 
She  was  like  an  invisible  star.  How  incred 
ible  that  love  like  that,  and  the  power  of  it, 
could  be  dependent  upon  the  paltry  senses  of 
what  are  called  live  people  for  so  much  as  the 
proofs  of  its  existence. 

"  It  is  not  scientific,"  I  caught  myself  say 
ing,  as  I  turned  away,  "  there  is  a  flaw  in  the 
logic  somewhere.  There  seems  to  be  a  snapped 
link  between  two  sets  of  facts.  There  is  no 
deficiency  of  data ;  the  difficulty  lies  wholly 
in  collating  them." 

How,  indeed,  should  I  —  how  did  I  but  a 
few  days  since  —  myself  regard  such  "  data  " 
as  presumed  to  indicate  the  continuance  of 
human  life  beyond  the  point  of  physical  decay ! 

"  After  all,"  I  thought,  as  I  wandered  from 


142  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

the  house  in  which  I  felt  myself  forgotten  and 
superfluous,  and  pursued  my  lonely  way,  I 
knew  not  whither  and  I  knew  not  why,  — 
"  after  all,  there  is  another  life.  I  really  did 
not  think  it." 

It  seemed  now  to  have  been  an  extraor 
dinary  narrowness  of  intellect  in  me  that  I 
had  not  at  least  attached  more  weight  to  the 
universal  human  hypothesis.  I  did  not  pre 
cisely  wonder  from  a  personal  point  of  view 
that  I  had  not  definitely  believed  it;  but  I 
wondered  that  I  had  not  given  the  possibility 
the  sort  of  attention  which  a  view  of  so  much 
dignity  deserved.  It  really  annoyed  me  that 
I  had  made  that  kind  of  mistake. 

We,  at  least,  were  alive,  —  my  old  patient 
and  I.  Whether  others,  or  how  many,  or  of 
what  sort,  I  could  not  tell ;  I  had  yet  seen  no 
other  spirit.  What  was  the  life-force  in  this 
new  condition  of  things  ?  Where  was  the  cen 
tral  cell?  What  made  us  go  on  living? 
Habit  ?  Or  selection  ?  Thought  ?  Emotion  ? 
Vigor  ?  If  the  last,  what  species  of  vigor  ? 
What  was  that  in  the  individual  which  gave 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  143 

it  strength  to  stay  ?  Whence  came  the  repro 
ductive  power  which  was  able  to  carry  on  the 
species  under  such  terrible  antagonism  as  the 
fact  of  death  ?  If  in  the  body,  where  was  the 
common  element  between  that  attenuated  in 
valid  and  my  robust  organization  ?  If  in  the 
soul,  between  the  suffering  saint  and  the  joy 
ous  man  of  the  world,  where  again  was  our 
common  moral  protoplasm  ? 

Nothing  occurred  to  me  at  the  time,  at  least, 
as  offering  any  spiritual  likeness  between 
myself  and  Mrs.  Faith,  but  the  fact  that  we 
were  both  people  of  strong  affections  whioh  had 
been  highly  cultivated.  Might  not  a  woman 
love  herself  into  continued  existence  who  felt 
for  any  creature  what  she  did  for  that  child  ? 

And  I  —  God  knew,  if  there  were  a  God, 
how  it  was  with  me.  If  I  had  never  done  any 
thing,  if  I  had  never  been  anything,  if  I  had 
never  felt  anything  else  in  all  my  life,  that 
was  fit  to  last,  I  had  loved  one  woman,  and 
her  only,  and  had  thought  high  thoughts  for 
her,  and  felt  great  emotions  for  her,  and  for 
gotten  self  for  her  sake,  and  thought  it  sweet 


144  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

to  suffer  for  her,  and  been  a  better  man  for 
love  of  her.  And  I  had  loved  her,  —  oh,  I  had 
so  loved  her,  that  I  knew  in  my  soul  ten  thou 
sand  deaths  could  not  murder  that  living  love. 

And  I  had  spoken  to  her  —  I  had  said  to 
her  —  like  any  low  and  brutal  fellow,  any 
common  wife-tormentor  —  I  had  gone  from  her 
dear  presence  to  this  mute  life  wherein  there 
was  neither  speech  nor  language;  where  nei 
ther  earth,  nor  heaven,  nor  my  love,  nor  my 
remorse,  nor  all  my  anguish,  nor  my  shame, 
could  give  my  sealed  lips  the  power  to  say, 
Forgive. 

Now,  while  I  was  cast  thus  abroad  upon  the 
night,  —  for  it  was  night,  —  sorely  shaken  and 
groaning  in  spirit,  taking  no  care  where  my 
homeless  feet  should  lead  me,  I  lifted  my  eyes 
suddenly,  and  looked  straight  on  before  me, 
and  behold !  shining  afar,  fair  and  sweet  and 
clear,  I  saw  and  recognized  the  lights  of  my 
own  home. 

I  was  still  at  some  distance  from  the  spot, 
and,  beside  myself  with  joy,  I  started  to  run 
unto  it.  With  the  swift  motions  which  spirits 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  145 

make,  and  which  I  was  beginning  now  to  mas 
ter  in  a  clumsy  manner  and  low  degree,  I  came, 
compassing  the  space  between  myself  and  all 
I  loved  or  longed  for,  and  so  brought  myself 
tumultuously  into  the  street  where  the  house 
stood ;  there,  at  a  stone's  throw  from  it,  I 
felt  myself  suddenly  stifled  with  my  haste,  or 
from  some  cause,  and,  pausing  (as  we  used  to 
say)  to  gather  breath,  I  found  that  I  was 
stricken  back,  and  fettered  to  the  ground. 

There  was  no  wind.  The  night  was  per 
fectly  still.  Not  a  leaf  quivered  on  the  top 
most  branch  of  the  linden  which  tapped  our 
chamber-window.  Yet  a  Power  like  a  mighty 
rushing  blast  gainsaid  me  and  smote  me  where  / 
I  was. 

Not  a  step,  though  I  writhed  for  it,  not  a 
breath  nearer,  though  my  heart  should  break 
for  it,  could   I   take  or  make   to   reach  her. 
This  was  my  doom.     Almost  within  clasp  of  1 
her  dear  arms,  within  sight  of  her  sweet  face,  ^ 
—  for  there !  while  I  stood  struggling,  I  saw  a    \ 
woman's  shadow  rise  and  stir  upon  the  dimly     \ 
lighted  wall,  —  thus  to  be  denied  and  bidden      \ 


146  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

back  from  her  seemed  to  me  more  than  heart 
could  bear. 

While  I  stood,  quite  unmanned  by  what 
had  happened,  incredulous  of  my  punishment, 
and  yearning  to  her  through  the  little  distance, 
and  stretching  out  my  hands  toward  her,  and 
brokenly  babbling  her  dear  name,  she  moved, 
and  I  saw  her  distinctly,  even  as  I  had  seen 
her  that  last  time.  She  stood  midway  between 
the  unlighted  parlor  and  the  lighted  library 
beyond.  The  drop-light  with  the  scarlet  shade 
blazed  behind  her. 

I  noticed  that  to-night,  as  on  that  other 
night,  the  baby  was  not  with  her ;  and  I  won 
dered  why.  She  stood  alone.  She  moved 
up  and  down  the  room  ;  she  had  a  weary  step. 
Her  dress,  I  saw,  was  black,  dead  black.  Her 
white  hands,  clasped  before  her,  shone  with 
startling  brilliancy  upon  the  sombre  stuff  she 
wore.  Her  lovely  head  was  bent  a  little, 
and  she  seemed  to  be  gazing  at  me  whom  she 
could  not  see.  Then  I  cried  with  such  a  cry, 
it  seemed  as  if  the  very  living  must  needs 
hear : — 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  147 

"  Helen  !     Helen  !     Helen  !  " 

But  she  stood  quite  still ;  leaning  her  pale 
face  toward  me,  like  some  listening  creature 
that  was  stricken  deaf. 

The  sight  was  more  sorrowful  than  I  could 
brave;  for  the  first  time  since  I  had  died  I 
succumbed  into  something  like  a  swoon,  ancT 
lost  my  miserable  consciousness  in  the  street 
before  her  door. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

WHEN  I  came  again  to  myself  I  found  that 
what  I  should  once  have  called  a  "phenom 
enon  "  had  taken  place.  The  city,  the  dim 
street,  the  familiar  architecture  of  my  home, 
the  streams  of  light  from  the  long  windows, 
the  leaves  of  the  linden  tapping  on  the  glass, 
the  woman's  shadow  on  the  wall,  and  the  stir 
ring  toward  me  of  the  form  and  face  I  loved, 
—  these  had  vanished. 

I  was  in  a  strange  place  ;  and  I  was  a  stran 
ger  in  it.  It  seemed  rather  a  lonely  place  at 
first,  though  it  was  not  unpleasing  to  me  as  I 
looked  abroad.  The  scenery  was  mountainous 
and  solemn,  but  it  was  therefore  on  a  large 
scale  and  restful  to  the  eye.  It  had  more 
grandeur  than  beauty,  to  my  first  impression ; 
but  I  remembered  that  I  was  not  in  a  condi 
tion  of  mind  to  be  receptive  of  the  merely 
beautiful,  which  might  exist  for  me  without 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  149 

my  perception  of  it,  even  as  the  life  of  the 
dead  existed  without  the  perception  of  the  liv 
ing.  Death,  if  it  had  taught  me  less  up  to 
that  time  than  it  might  have  done  to  nobler 
men,  had  at  least  done  so  much  as  this  /  it  had 
accustomed  me  to  respect  the  unseen,  and  to 
regard  its  possible  action  upon  the  seen  as  a 
matter  of  import.  As  I  looked  forth  upon  the 
hills  and  skies,  the  plains  and  forests,  and  on 
to  the  distant  signs  of  human  habitation  in  the 
scenery  about  me,  I  thought :  — 

"  I  am  in  a  world  where  it  is  probable  that 
there  exist  a  thousand  things  which  I  cannot 
understand  to  one  which  I  can." 

It  seemed  to  me  a  very  uncomfortable  state 
of  affairs,  whatever  it  was.  I  felt  estranged 
from  this  place,  even  before  I  was  acquainted 
with  it.  Nothing  in  my  nature  responded  to 
its  atmosphere ;  or,  if  so,  petulantly  and  with 
a  kind  of  helpless  antagonism,  like  the  first  cry 
of  the  new-born  infant  in  the  old  life. 

As  I  got  myself  languidly  to  my  feet,  and 
idly  trod  the  path  which  lay  before  me,  for 
lack  of  knowing  any  better  thing  to  do,  I 


150  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

began  to  perceive  that  others  moved  about 
the  scene ;  that  I  was  not,  as  I  had  thought, 
alone,  but  one  of  a  company,  each  going  on 
his  errand  as  he  would.  I  only  seemed  to 
have  no  errand  ;  and  I  was  at  a  great  distance 
from  these  people,  whose  presence,  however, 
though  so  remote,  gave  me  something  of  the 
sense  of  companionship  which  one  whose  home 
is  in  a  lonely  spot  upon  a  harbor  coast  has 
in  watching  the  head-lights  of  anchored  ships 
upon  dark  nights.  Communication  there  is 
none,  but  desolation  is  less  for  knowing  that 
there  could  be,  or  for  fancying  that  there 
might. 

Across  the  space  between  us,  I  looked  upon 
my  fellow-citizens  in  this  new  country,  with  a 
dull  emotion  not  unlike  gratitude  for  their  ex 
istence  ;  but  I  felt  little  curiosity  about  them. 
I  was  too  unhappy  to  be  so  easily  diverted.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  the  memory  of  my  wife 
would  become  a  mania  to  me,  if  I  could  in  no 
way  make  known  to  her  how  utterly  I  loved 
her  and  how  I  scorned  myself.  I  cannot  say 
that  I  felt  much  definite  interest  in  the  novel 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  151 

circumstances  surrounding  me,  except  as  possi 
ble  resources  for  some  escape  from  the  situa 
tion,  as  it  stood  between  herself  and  me.  If  I 
could  compass  any  means  of  communicating 
with  her,  1  believed  that  I  could  accept  rny 
doom,  let  it  take  me  where  it  might  or  make  of 
me  what  it  would. 

Walking  thus  drearily,  alone,  and  not  sorry 
to  be  alone  in  that  unfamiliar  company,  lost  in 
the  fixed  idea  of  my  own  misery,  I  suddenly 
heard  light  footsteps  hurrying  behind  me.  I 
thought :  — 

"  There  is  another  spirit ;  one  move  of  the 
newly  dead,  come  to  this  strange  place." 

But  I  did  not  find  it  worth  my  while  to  turn 
and  greet  him,  being  so  wrapt  in  my  own 
fate  ;  and  when  a  soft  hand  touched  my  arm, 
I  moved  from  it  with  something  like  dismay. 

"  Why,  Doctor !  "  said  the  gentle  voice  of 
Mrs.  Faith,  "  did  I  startle  you  ?  I  have  been 
hunting  for  you  everywhere,"  she  added,  laugh 
ing  lightly.  "  I  was  afraid  you  would  feel 
rather  desolate.  It  is  a  pity.  Now,  I  am 
as  happy  !  " 


152  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

"  Did  Charley  live  ?  "  I  asked  immediately. 

"  Oh  yes,  Charley  lived ;  what  we  used  to 
call  living,  when  we  were  there.  Poor  Char 
ley  !  I  keep  thinking  how  he  would  enjoy 
everything  if  he  were  here  with  me.  But  his 
father  needed  him.  It  makes  me  so  happy! 
I  am  very  happy !  Tell  me,  Doctor,  what  do 
you  think  of  this  place  ?  How  does  it  strike 
you?" 

"  It  is  a  foreign  country,"  I  said  sadly. 

"Is  it,  Doctor?  Poor  Doctor!  Why,  I 
feel  so  much  at  home  !  " 

She  lifted  a  radiant  face  to  me ;  it  was 
touching  to  see  her  expression,  and  marvelous 
to  behold  the  idealization  of  health  on  fea 
tures  for  so  many  years  adjusted  to  pain  and 
patience. 

"  Dear  Doctor  !  "  she  cried  joyously,  "  you 
never  thought  to  see  me  well !  They  call  this 
death.  Why,  I  never  knew  what  it  was  to  be 
alive  before !  " 

"  I  must  make  you  acquainted  with  some  of 
the  people  who  live  here,"  she  added,  quickly 
recalling  herself  from  her  own  interests  to 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  153 

mine,  with  her  natural  unselfishness,  "it  is 
pitiful  to  come  into  this  place  —  as  you  have 
done.  You  always  knew  so  many  people. 
You  had  such  friends  about  you.  I  never  saw 
you  walk  alone  in  all  your  life  before." 

"  I  wish  to  be  alone,"  I  answered  moodily. 
"  I  care  nothing  for  this  place,  or  for  the  men 
who  live  here.  It  is  all  unfamiliar  to  me.  I 
am  not  happy  in  it.  I  am  afraid  I  have  not 
been  educated  for  it.  It  is  the  most  unhome-  ""s 
like  place  I  ever  saw." 

Her  eyes  filled ;  she  did  not  answer  me  at 
once  ;  when  she  did  it  was  to  say  : 

"  It  will  be  better.  It  will  be  better  by  and 
by.  Have  you  seen  "  — 

She  stopped  and  hesitated. 

"  Ijaye  you  seen  the  Lord  ?  "  she  asked,  in  a 
low  voice.  She  was  wont,  I  remember,  to  use 
this  word  in  a  way  peculiarly  her  own  ;  as  if 
she  were  referring  to  some  personal  acquaint 
ance,  near  to  her  heart.  I  shook  my  head, 
looking  drearily  upon  her. 

"  Don't  you  want  to  see  Him  ?  " 

"  I  want  to  see  my  wife  !  " 


154  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

"Oh,  I  am  sorry  for  you,"  she  said,  with 
forbearing  gentleness.  "It  is  pretty  hard. 
But  I  wish  you  wanted  Him." 

"  I  want  to  see  my  wife !  I  want  to  see  my 
wife  !  "  I  interrupted  bitterly.  And  with  this 
I  turned  away  from  her  and  hid  my  face,  for 
I  could  speak  no  more,  When  I  lifted  my 
eyes,  she  had  gone  from  me,  and  I  was  again 
alone.  When  it  was  thus  too  late,  it  occurred 
to  me  that  I  had  lost  an  opportunity  which 
might  not  easily  return  to  me,  and  I  sought 
far  and  wide  for  Mrs.  Faith.  I  did  not  find 
her,  though  I  aroused  myself  to  the  point  of 
accosting  some  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  coun 
try,  and  making  definite  inquiries  for  her.  I 
was  answered  with  great  courtesy  and  uncom 
mon  warmth  of  manner,  as  if  it  were  the  cus 
tom  of  this  place  to  take  a  genuine  interest  in 
the  affairs  of  strangers ;  but  I  was  not  able, 
by  any  effort  on  my  part,  to  bring  myself  in 
proximity  to  her.  This  trifling  disappoint 
ment  added  to  my  sense  of  helplessness  in  the 
new  life  on  which  I  had  entered ;  and  I  was 
still  as  incredulous  of  helplessness  and  as 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  155 

galled  by  it  as  I  should  have  been  by  the  very 
world  of  woe  which  had  formed  so  irritating 
a  dogma  to  me  in  the  theology  of  my  day  on 
earth,  and  which  I  had  regarded  as  I  did  the 
nightmares  of  a  dyspeptic  patient. 

In  this  state  of  feeling,  it  was  the  greatest 
comfort  to  me  when,  at  some  period  of  time 
which  I  have  no  means  of  defining,  but  which 
could  not  have  been  long  afterward,  Mrs. 
Faith  came  suddenly  again  across  my  path. 
She  radiated  happiness  and  health  and  beauty, 
and  when  she  held  out  both  her  hands  to  me 
in  greeting  they  seemed  to  glitter,  as  if  she 
had  stepped  from  a  bath  of  delight. 

"Oh,"  she  said  joyously,  "have  you  seen 
Him  yet  ?  "  It  embarrassed  me  to  be  forced 
to  answer  in  the  negative ;  it  gave  me  a  strange 
feeling,  as  if  I  had  been  a  convict  in  the  coun 
try,  and  denied  the  passport  of  honorable  men. 
I  therefore  waived  her  question  as  well  as  I 
might,  and  proceeded  to  make  known  to  her 
the  thought  which  had  been  occupying  me. 

"  You  have  the  entree  of  the  dear  earth,"  I 
said  sadly.  "  They  do  not  treat  you  in  the  — 


156  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

in  the  very  singular  manner  with  which  I  am 
treated.  It  is  important  beyond  explanation 
that  I  get  a  message  to  my  wife.  A  beggar  in 
the  street  may  be  admitted  to  her  charity,  —  I 
saw  one  at  the  door  the  night  I  stood  there. 
I,  only  I,  am  forbidden  to  enter.  Whatever 
may  be  the  natural  laws  which  are  set  in  oppo 
sition  to  me,  they  have  extraordinary  force ;  I 
can  do  nothing  against  them.  I  suppose  I  do 
not  understand  them.  If  I  had  an  opportunity 
to  study  them  —  but  I  have  no  opportunities 
at  anything.  It  is  a  new  experience  to  me  to 
be  so  —  so  disregarded  by  the  general  scheme 
of  things.  I  seem  to  be  of  no  more  conse 
quence  in  this  place  than  a  bootblack  was  in 
the  world;  or  a  paralytic  person.  It  seems  use 
less  for  me  to  fly  in  the  face  of  fate,  since  this 
is  fate.  I  have  no  hope  of  being  able  to  reach 
my  wife.  You  have  privileges  in  this  condition 
which  are  evidently  far  superior  to  mine.  I 
have  been  thinking  that  possibly  you  may  be 
able  —  and  willing  —  to  approach  her  for  me?  " 
"  I  don't  think  it  would  succeed,  Doctor," 
replied  my  old  patient  quickly.  "  I  'd  do  it ! 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  157 

You  know  I  would  !  But  if  I  were  Helen  — 
She  is  a  very  reserved  person  ;  she  never  talks 
about  her  husband,  as  different  women  do  ; 
her  feeling  is  of  such  a  sort ;  I  do  not  think 
she  would  understand,  if  another  woman  were 
to  speak  from  you  to  her." 

"  Perhaps  not,"  I  sighed. 

"  I  am  afraid  it  would  be  the  most  hopeless 
experiment  you  could  make,"  said  Mrs.  Faith. 
"  She  loves  you  too  much  for  it,"  she  added, 
with  the  divination  of  her  sex.  Comforted  a 
little  by  Mrs.  Faith,  I  quickly  abandoned  this 
project ;  indeed,  I  soon  abandoned  every  other 
which  concerned  itself  with  Helen,  and  yielded 
myself  with  a  kind  of  desperate  lethargy,  if  I 
may  be  allowed  the  expression,  to  the  fate 
which  separated  me  from  her.  Of  resignation  I 
knew  nothing.  Peace  was  the  coldest  stranger 
in  that  strange  land  to  me.  I  yielded  because 
I  could  not  help  it,  not  because  I  would  have 
willed  it ;  and  with  that  dull  strength  which 
grows  into  the  sinews  of  the  soul  from  neces 
sity,  sought  to  adjust  myself  in  such  fashion  as 
I  might  to  my  new  conditions.  It  occurred  to 


158  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

me  from  time  to  time  that  it  would  have  been 
an  advantage  if  I  had  felt  more  interest  in  the 
conditions  themselves  ;  that  it  would  even  have 
spared  me  something  if  I  had  ever  cultivated 
any  familiarity  with  the  possibilities  of  such  a 
state  of  existence.  I  could  not  remember  that 
I  had  in  the  old  life  satisfactorily  proved  that 
another  could  not  follow  it.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  if  I  had  only  so  much  as  exercised  my 
imagination  upon  the  possible  course  of  events 
in  case  another  did,  it  would  have  been  of 
some  practical  service  to  me  now<  I  was  in 
the  position  of  a  man  who  is  become  the  victim 
of  a  discovery  whose  rationality  he  has  con 
temptuously  denied.  It  was  like  being  struck 
by  a  projectile  while  one  is  engaged  in  disprov 
ing  the  existence  of  gunpowder. 

If  a  soul  may  properly  be  said  to  be  stunned, 
mine,  at  this  time,  was  that  soul. 

In  this  condition  solitude  was  still  so  natu 
ral  to  me  that  I  made  no  effort  to  approach 
the  people  of  the  place,  and  contented  myself 
with  observing  them  and  their  affairs  from  a 
distance.  They_  seemed  a  very  happy  people. 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  159 

There  could  be  no  mistake  about  that.  _J^did 
not  see  a  clouded  countenance  ;  nor  did  I  hear 
an  accent  of  discomfort,  or  of  pain.  I  won 
dered  at  their  joyousness,  which  I  found  it  as 
impossible  to  share  as  the  sick  find  it  impossi 
ble  to  share  what  has  been  called  "the  inso 
lence  of  health."  It  did,  indeed,  appear  to  me 
as  something  almost  impertinent,  as  posses 
sion  always  appears  to  denial.  But  I  had 
never  been  denied  before.  I  perceived,  also, 
that  the  inhabitants  of  this  country  were  a 
busy  people.  They  came  and  went,  they  met 
and  parted,  with  the  eagerness  of  occupation  ; 
though  there  was  a  conspicuous  absence  of  the 
fretful  haste  to  which  I  had  been  used  in  the 
conduct  of  business.  I  looked  upon  the  avo 
cations  of  this  strange  land,  and  wondered  at 
them.  I  could  not  see  with  what  they  were 
occupied,  or  why,  or  to  what  end.  They  af 
fected  me  perhaps  something  as  the  concerns 
of  the  human  race  may  affect  the  higher  ani 
mals.  I  looked  on  with  an  unintelligent  envy. 
One  day,  as  I  was  strolling  miserably  about, 
a  child  came  up  and  spoke  to  me.  He,  like  my- 


160  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

self,  was  alone.  He  was  a  beautiful  child,  — 
a  little  boy  ;  he  seemed  scarcely  more  than  an 
infant.  He  appeared  to  be  in  search  of  some 
one  or  of  something ;  his  brilliant  eyes  roved 
everywhere ;  he  had  a  noble  little  head,  and 
carried  himself  courageously.  He  gave  no  ev 
idence  of  fear  or  sadness  at  his  isolated  posi 
tion,  but  ran  right  on,  —  for  he  was  running 
when  I  saw  him,  —  as  if  he  had  gone  forth 
upon  some  happy,  childish  errand. 

But  at  sight  of  me  he  paused ;  regarded  me 
a  moment  with  the  piercing  candor  of  child 
hood^  as  if  he  took  my  moral  measure  after 
some  inexplicable  personal  scale  of  his  own ; 
then  came  directly  and  put  his  hand  into  my 
own. 

I  grasped  it  heartily,  —  who  could  have 
helped  it  ?  —  and  lifting  the  little  fellow  in 
my  arms  kissed  him  affectionately,  as  one 
does  a  pretty  stranger  child.  This  seemed  to 
gratify  him  rather  than  to  satisfy  him;  he 
nestled  in  my  neck,  but  moved  restlessly,  slip 
ping  to  the  ground,  and  back  again  into  my 
arms ;  jabbering  incoherently  and  pleasantly  ; 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  161 

seeming  to  be  diverted  rather  than  comforted ; 
ready  to  stay,  but  alert  to  go;  in  short,  be 
having  like  a  baby  on  a  visit.  After  awhile 
the  child  adjusted  himself  to  the  situation ; 
grew  quiet,  and  clung  to  me ;  and  at  last,  put 
ting  both  his  arms  about  my  neck,  he  gave  the 
long,  sweet  sigh  of  healthy  infant  weariness, 
and  babbling  something  to  the  general  effect 
that  Boy  was  tired,  he  dropped  into  a  sound 
and  happy  sleep. 

Here,  indeed,  was  a  situation !  It  drew 
from  me  the  first  smile  which  had  crossed  my 
lips  since  I  had  died.  What,  pray,  wars  I,  who 
seemed  to  be  of  no  consequence  whatever  in 
this  amazing  country,  and  who  had  more  than 
I  knew  how  to  do  in  looking  after  myself,  un 
der  its  mysterious  conditions,  —  what  was  I  to 
do  with  a  spirit-baby  gone  to  sleep  upon  my 
neck? 

"  I  must  go  and  find  the  Orphan  Asylum,"  I 
thought ;  "  doubtless  they  have  them  in  this 
extraordinary  civilization.  I  must  take  the  lit 
tle  fellow  to  some  women  as  soon  as  possible." 
At  this  juncture,  my  friend  Mrs.  Faith  ap- 


162  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

peared,  making  a  mock  of  being  out  of  breath, 
and  laughing  heartily. 

"  He  ran  away  from  me,"  she  merrily  ex 
plained.  "  I  had  the  care  of  him,  and  he  ran 
on ;  he  came  straight  to  you.  I  could  n't  hold 
him.  What  a  comfort  he  will  be  to  you  !  .  .  . 
Why,  Doctor  !  Do  you  mean  to  say  you  don't 
know  who  the  child  is  ?  " 

"  It  seems  to  me,"  she  added,  with  a  moth 
er's  sublime  superiority,  "7"  should  know  my 
own  baby  !  If  I  were  so  fortunate  as  to  find 
one  here !  —  How  much  less  you  know,"  she 
proceeded  naively,  "  than  I  used  to  think  you 
did !  " 

"  Did  the  child  die  ?  "  I  asked,  trembling 
so  that  I  had  to  put  the  little  fellow  down  lest 
he  should  fall  from  my  startled  arms,  "  did 
something  really  ail  him  that  night  when  his 
mother  —  that  miserable  night  ?  " 

"The  child  died,"  she  answered  gravely. 
"  Dear  little  Boy !  Take  him  up  again,  Doc 
tor.  Don't  you  see  ?  He  is  uneasy  unless 
you  hold  him  fast." 

I  took  Boy  up  ;  I  held  him  close  ;  I  kissed 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  163 

him,  and  I  clung  to  him,  and  melted  into  un 
intelligible  cries  above  him,  never  minding 
Mrs.  Faith,  for  I  quite  forgot  her. 

But  what  I  felt  was  for  my  child's  poor 
mother,  and  all  my  thought  was  for  her,  and 
my  heart  broke  for  her,  that  she  should  be 
so  bereft. 

"  I  should  like  to  know  if  you  suppose  for 
one  minute  that  she  would  n't  rather  you  would 
have  the  little  fellow,  if  he  is  the  least  bit  of 
comfort  to  you  in  the  world  ?" 

Mrs.  Faith  said  this ;  she  spoke  with  a  kind 
of  lofty,  feminine  scorn. 

"  Why,  Helen  loves  you ! "  she  said,  su 
perbly. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

"  I  BELIEVE,"  said  my  old  patient,  "  I  be 
lieve  that  was  the  highest  moment  of  your 
life." 

A  man  of  my  sort  seldom  comprehends  a 
woman  of  hers.  I  did  not  understand  her, 
and  I  told  her  so,  looking  at  her  across  the 
clinging  child.  , 

"  There  was  no  self  in  it !  "  she  answered 
eagerly. 

"  Oh,"  I  said  indifferently,  "  is  that  all  ?  " 

"  It  is  everything,"  replied  the  wiser  spirit, 
"  in  the  place  that  we  have  come  to.  It  is 
like  a  birth.  Such  a  moment  has  to  go  on  liv 
ing.  One  is  never  the  same  after  as  one  was 
before  it.  Changes  follow.  May  the  Lord  be 
in  them !  " 

"  But  stay  !  "  I  cried,  as  she  made  a  signal 
of  farewell,  "  are  you  not  going  to  help  me  — 
is  nobody  going  to  help  me  take  care  of  this 
child  ?  " 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  165 

She  shook  her  head,  smiling ;  then  laughed 
outright  at  my  perplexity ;  and  with  a  merry 
air  of  enjoyment  in  my  extraordinary  position, 
she  went  her  ways  and  left  me. 

There  now  began  for  me  a  singular  life. 
Changes  followed,  as  Mrs.  Faith  had  said. 
The  pains  and  the  privileges  of  isolation  were 
possible  to  me  no  longer.  Action  of  some 
sort,  communion  of  some  kind  with  the  world 
in  which  I  lived,  became  one  of  the  imperative 
necessities  about  which  men  do  not  philoso 
phize.  For  there  was  the  boy  !  Whatever  my 
views  about  a  spiritual  state  of  existence,  there 
always  was  the  boy.  No  matter  how  I  had 
demonstrated  the  unreasonableness  of  living 

after  death,  the  child  was  alive.     However  I 

v 

might  personally  object  to  my  own  share  of 

immortality,  I  was  a  living  father,  with  my 
motherless  baby  in  my  arms. 

Up  to  this  time  I  had  lived  in  an  indiffer 
ent  fashion ;  in  the  old  world,  we  should  have 
called  it  "  anyhow."  Food  I  scarcely  took, 
or  if  at  all,  it  was  to  snatch  at  such  wild  fruits 
as  grew  directly  before  me,  without  regard  to 


166  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

their  fitness  or  palatableness ;  paying,  in  short, 
as  little  attention  to  the  subject  as  possible. 
Home  I  had  none.  I  wandered  till  I  was 
weary  of  wandering,  and  rested  till  I  could  rest 
no  more ;  seeking  such  shelter  as  the  country 
afforded  me  in  lonely  and  beautiful  spots ;  dis 
contented  with  what  I  had,  but  desiring  noth 
ing  further  ;  with  my  own  miserable  thoughts 
for  housemates  and  for  neighbors,  and  the  ab 
sence  of  hope  forbidding  the  presence  of  en 
ergy.  Nothing  that  I  could  see  interested  me. 
Much  or  most  that  I  took  the  trouble  to  ob 
serve,  I  should  have  been  frankly  obliged  to 
admit  that  I  did  not  understand. 

The  customs  of  the  people  bewildered  me. 
Their  evident  happiness  irritated  me.  Their 
activity  produced  in  me  only  the  desire  to  get 
out  of  sight  of  it.  Their  personal  health  and 
beauty  —  for  they  were  a  very  comely  people  — 
gave  me  something  the  kind  of  nervous  shrink 
ing  that  I  had  so  often  witnessed  in  the  sick, 
when  some  buoyant,  inconsiderate,  bubbling 
young  creature  burst  into  the  room  of  pain.  I 
felt  in  the  presence  of  the  universal  blessedness 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  167 

aboutjnejike  some  hurt  animal,  who  cares  only 
to  crawl  in  somewhere  and  be  forgotten.  If  I 
drew  near,  as  I  had  on  several  occasions  done, 
to  give  some  attention  to  the  occupations  of 
the  inhabitants,  all  these  feelings  were  accen 
tuated  so  much  that  I  was  fain  to  withdraw 
before  I  had  studied  the  subject. 

Study  there  was  in  that  country,  and  art  and 
industry;  even  traffic,  if  traffic  it  might  be 
called ;  it  seemed  to  be  an  interchange  of  pos 
sessions,  conducted  upon  principles  of  the  purest 
consideration  for  the  public,  as  opposed  to 
personal  welfare. 

Homes  there  were,  and  the  construction  of 
them,  and  the  happiest  natural  absorption  in 
their  arrangement  and  management.  There 
were  families  and  household  devotion;  par 
ents,  children,  lovers,  neighbors,  friends.  I 
saw  schools  and  other  resorts  of  learning,  and 
what  seemed  to  be  institutions  of  benevolence 
and  places  of  worship,  a  series  of  familiar  and 
yet  wholly  unfamiliar  sights.  In  them  all  ex 
isted  a  spirit,  even  as  the  spirit  of  man  exists 
in  his  earthly  body,  i  which  was  and  willed  and 


168  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

acted  as  that  does,  and  which,  like  that,  de 
fied  analysis.  I  could  perceive  at  the  hastiest 
glance  that  these  people  conducted  themselves 
upon  a  set  of  motives  entirely  strange  to  me. 
What  they  were  doing  —  what  they  were  doing 
it  for —  I  simply  did  not  know.  A  great  cen 
tral  purpose  controlled  them,  such  as  controls 
masses  of  men  in  battle  or  at  public  prayer; 
a  powerful  and  universal  Law  had  hold  of 
them  ;  they  treated  it  as  if  they  loved  it.  They 
seemed  to  feel  affectionately  toward  the  whole 
system  of  things.  They  loved,  and  thought, 
and  wrought  straight  onward  with  it ;  no  one 
put  the  impediment  of  a  criticism  against  it,  — 
no  one  that  I  could  see  or  suspect,  in  all  the 
place,  except  my  isolated  self.  They  had  the 
air  of  those  engaged  in  some  sweet  and  solemn 
object,  common  to  them  all ;  an  object,  evi 
dently  set  above  rather  than  upon  the  general 
level.  Their  faces  shone  with  pleasure  and 
with  peace.  Often  they  wore  a  high,  devout 
look.  They  never  showed  an  irritated  expres 
sion,  never  an  anxious  nor  that  I  could  see 
a  sad  one.  It  was  impossible  to  deny  the 
marked  nobility  of  their  appearance. 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  169 

"If  this,"  I  thought,  "be  what  is  called  a  \ 
spiritual  life,  I  was  not    ready  to  become    a 
spirit." 

Now,  when  my  child  awaked  and  called  me, 
as  he  had  begun,  in  the  dear  old  days  on 
earth,  to  learn  to  do,  and  like  any  live  human 
baby  proceeded  to  give  vent'  to  a  series  of  in 
coherent  remarks  bearing  upon  the  fact  that 
Boy  would  like  his  supper,  I  was  fain  to  per-, 
ceive  that  being  a  spirit  did  not  materially 
change  the  relation  of  a  man  to  the  plainer 
human  duties  ;  and  that,  whether  personally 
agreeable  or  no,  I  must  needs  bring  myself  into 
some  sort  of  connection  with  the  civilization 
about  me.  I  might  be  a  homesick  fellow,  but 

"  ^^ 

the  baby  was  hungry.  I  might  be  at  odds 
with  the  whole  scheme  of  things,  but  the  child 
must  have  a  shelter.  I  might  be  a  spiritual 
outcast,  but  what  was  to  become  of  Boy? 
The  heart  of  the  father  arose  in  me ;  and, 
gathering  the  little  fellow  to  my  breast,  I  set 
forth  quickly  to  the  nearest  town. 

Here,  after  some   hesitation,  I  accosted   a 
stranger,  whose  appearance   pleased  me,  and 


170  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

besought  his  assistance  in  my  perplexity.  He 
was  a  man  of  lofty  bearing ;  his  countenance 
was  strong  and  benign  as  the  western  wind ; 
he  had  a  gentle  smile,  but  eyes  which  pierc 
ingly  regarded  me.  He  was  of  superior  beauty, 
and  conducted  himself  as  one  having  authority. 
He  was  much  occupied,  and  hastening  upon 
some  evidently  important  errand;  but  he 
stopped  at  once,  and  gave  his  attention  to  me 
with  the  hearty  interest  in  others  character 
istic  of  the  people. 

"  Are  you  a  stranger  in  the  country  —  but 
newly  come  to  us  ?  " 

"  A  stranger,  sir,  but  not  newly  arrived." 

"  And  the  child  ?  " 

"  The  child  ran  into  my  arms  about  an  hour 
ago." 

"  Is  the  boy  yours  ?  " 

"  He  is  my  only  child." 

"  What  do  you  desire  for  him  ?  " 

"  I  would  fain  provide  for  him  those  things 
which  a  father  must  desire.  I  seek  food  and 
shelter.  I  wish  a  home,  and  means  of  sub 
sistence,  and  neighborhood,  and  the  matters 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  171 

which  are  necessary  to  the  care  and  comfort 
of  an  infant.  Pray,  counsel  me.  I  do  not  un 
derstand  the  conditions  of  life  in  this  remark 
able  place." 

"  I  do  not  know  that  it  is  of  consequence 
that  I  should,"  I  added,  less  courteously,  "  but 
I  cannot  see  the  boy  deprived.  He  must  be 
made  comfortable  as  speedily  as  possible.  I 
shall  be  obliged  to  you  for  some  suggestion  in 
the  matter." 

"  Come  hither,"  replied  the  stranger,  lacon 
ically.  Forthwith,  he  led  me,  saying  nothing 
further,  and  1  followed,  asking  nothing  more. 

This  embarrassed  me  somewhat,  and  it  was 
with  some  discomfort  that  I  entered  the  house 
of  entertainment  to  which  I  was  directed,  and 
asked  for  those  things  which  were  needful  for 
my  child.  These  were  at  once  and  lavishly 
provided.  It  soon  proved  that  I  had  come  to 
a  luxurious  and  hospitable  place.  The  people 
were  most  sympathetic  in  their  manner.  Boy 
especially  excited  the  kindest  of  attention ; 
some  women  fondled  him,  and  all  the  inmates 
of  the  house  interested  themselves  in  the  little 
motherless  spirit. 


172  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

In  spite  of  myself  this  touched  me,  and  my 
heart  warmed  toward  my  entertainers. 

"  Tell  me,"  I  said,  turning  toward  him  who 
had  brought  me  thither,  "  how  shall  I  make 
compensation  for  my  entertainment?  What 
is  the  custom  of  the  country  ?  I  —  what  we 
used  to  call  property  —  you  will  understand 
that  I  necessarily  left  behind  me.  I  am  accus 
tomed  to  the  use  of  it.  I  hardly  know  what 
to  do  without  it.  I  am  accustomed  to  —  some 
abundance.  I  wish  to  remunerate  the  people 
of  this  house." 

"  What  did  you  bring  with  you  ?  "  asked 
my  new  acquaintance,  with  a  half-sorrowful 
look,  as  if  he  would  have  helped  me  out  of  an 
unpleasant  position  if  he  could. 

"Nothing,"  I  replied,  after  some  thought, 
"  nothing  but  my  misery.  That  does  not  seem 
to  be  a  marketable  commodity  in  this  happy 
place.  I  could  spare  some,  if  it  were." 

"What  had  you?  "  pursued  my  questioner, 
without  noticing  my  ill-timed  satire.  "  What 
were  your  possessions  in  the  life  yonder  ?  " 

"  Health.   Love.   Happiness.  Home.    Pros- 


J 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  173 

perity.Work.  Fame.  Wealth.  Ambition." 
I  numbered  these  things  slowly  and  bitterly. 
"  None  of  them  did  I  bring  with  me.  I  have 
lost  them  all  upon  the  way.  They  do  not 
serve  me  in  this  differing  civilization." 

"  Was  there  by  chance  nothing  more  ?  " 

"  Nothing  more.  Unless  you  count  a  little 
incidental  usefulness." 

"  And  that  ?  "  he  queried  eagerly. 

I  therefore  explained  to  him  that  I  had  been 
a  very  busy  doctor ;  that  I  used  to  think  I 
took  pleasure  in  relieving  the  misery  of  the 
sick,  but  that  it  seemed  a  mixed  matter  now, 
as  I  looked  back  upon  it,  —  so  much  love  of 
fame,  love  of  power,  love  of  love  itself,  —  and 
that  I  did  not  put  forth  my  life's  work  as  of 
importance  in  his  scale  of  value. 

"  That  would  not  lessen  its  value,"  replied 
my  friend.  "  I  myself  was  a  healer  of  the  sick. 
Your  case  appeals  to  me.  I  was  known  as  "  — 

He  whispered  a  name  which  gave  me  a  start 
of  pleasure.     It  was  a  name  famous  in  its  dayX    V 
and  that  a  day  long  before  my  own ;  a  name  I 
immortal  in  medical  history.     Few  men  in  the 


174  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

world  had  done  as  much  as  this  one  to  lessen 
the  sum  of  human  suffering.  It  excited  me 
greatly  to  meet  him. 

"  But  you,"  I  cried,  "  you  were  not  like  the 
rest  of  us  or  the  most  of  us.  You  believed  in 
Mbhese  —  invisible  things.  You  were  a  man  of 
what  is  called  faith.  I  have  often  thought  of 
that.  I  never  laid  down  a  biography  of  you 
without  wondering  that  a  man  of  your  in 
telligence  should  retain  that  superstitious  ele 
ment  of  character.  I  ought  to  beg  your  pardon 
for  the  adjective.  I  speak  as  I  have  been  in 
the  habit  of  speaking." 

"  Do  you  wonder  now  ?  "  asked  the  great 
surgeon,  smiling  benignly.  I  shook  my  head. 
Ijwondered  at  nothing  now. 

But  I  felt  myself  incapable  of  discussing  a 
set  of  subjects  upon  which,  for  the  first  time 
in  my  life,  I  now  knew  myself  to  be  really  un 
informed. 

I  took  the  pains  to  explain  to  my  new  friend 
that  in  matters  of  what  he  would  call  spiritual 
import  I  was,  for  aught  I  knew  to  the  contrary, 
the  most  ignorant  person  in  the  community. 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  175 

I  added  that  I  supposed  lie  would  expect  me 
to  feel  humiliated  by  this. 

"Do  you?  "  he  asked,  abruptly. 

"  It  makes  me  uncomfortable,"  I  replied, 
candidly.  "  I  don't  know  that  I  can  say  more 
than  that.  I  find  it  embarrassing." 

"  That  is  straightforward,"  said  the  great 
physician.  "  There  is  at  least  no  diseased  cas 
uistry  about  you.  I  do  not  regard  the  indi 
cations  as  unfavorable." 

He  said  this  with  something  of  the  profes 
sional  manner ;  it  amused  me,  and  I  smiled. 
"  Take  the  case,  Doctor,  if  you  will,"  Lhumbly 
said.  "  I  could  not  have  happened  on  any 
person  to  whom  I  would  have  been  so  willing 
to  intrust  it." 

"  We  will  consider  the  question,"  he  said 
gravely. 

In  this  remarkable  community,  and  under 
the  guidance  of  this  remarkable  man,  I  now 
began  a  difficult  and  to  me  astonishing  life. 
The  first  thing  which  happened  was  not  calcu 
lated  to  soothe  my  personal  feeling :  this  was 
no  less  than  the  discovery  that  I  really  had 


176  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

nothing  wherewith  to  compensate  the  citizens 
wHo  had  provided  for  the  comfort  of  my  child 
and  of  myself ;  in  short,  that  I  was  no  more 
nor  less  than  an  object  of  charity  at  their 
hands.  I  writhed  under  this,  as  may  be  well 
imagined ;  and  with  more  impatience  than  hu 
mility  urged  that  I  be  permitted  to  perform 
some  service  which  at  least  would  bring  me 
into  relation  with  the  commercial  system  of 
the  country.  I  was  silenced  by  being  gently 
asked  :  What  could  I  do  ? 

"But  have  you  no  sick  here?"  I  pleaded, 
"  no  hospitals  or  places  of  need  ?  I  am  not 
without  experience,  I  may  say  that  I  am  even 
not  without  attainment,  in  my  profession.  Is 
there  no  use  for  it  all,  in  this  state  of  being 
which  I  have  come  to  ?  " 

"  Sick  we  have,"  replied  the  surgeon,  "  and 
hospitals.  I  myself  am  much  occupied  in  one 
of  these.  But  the  diseases  that  men  bring 
here  are  not  of  the  body.  Our  patients  are 
chiefly  from  among  the  newly  arrived,  like 
yourself ;  they  are  those  who  are  at  odds  with 
the  spirit  of  the  place  ;  hence  they  suffer  dis 
comfort." 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  177 

"  They  do  not  harmonize  with  the  environ 
ment,  I  suppose,"  I  interrupted  eagerly.  I 
was  conscious  of  a  wish  to  turn  the  great  man's 
thought  from  a  personal  to  a  scientific  direction. 
It  occurred  to  me  with  dismay  that  I  might 
be  selected  yet  to  become  a  patient  under  this 
extraordinary  system  of  things.  That  would 
be  horrible.  I  could  think  of  nothing  worse. 

I  proceeded  to  suggest  that  if  anything 
could  be  found  for  me  to  do,  in  this  superior 
art  of  healing,  or  if,  indeed,  I  could  study 
and  perfect  myself  in  it,  I  was  more  than 
willing  to  learn,  or  to  perform. 

"  Canst  thou  heal  a  sick  spirit  ?  "  inquired 
my  friend,  solemnly.  "  Canst  thou  administer 
holiness  to  a  sinful  soul  ?  " 

I  bowed  my  head  before  him  ;  for  I  had 
naught  to  say.  Alas,  what  art  had  I,  in  that 
high  science  so  far  above  me,  that  my  earth- 
bound  gaze  had  never  reached  unto  it  ? 

I  was  not  like  my  friend,  who  seemed  to 
have  carried  on  the  whole  range  of  his  great 
earthly  attainments,  by  force  of  what  I  sup 
posed  would  have  to  be  called  his  spiritual 


178  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

education.  Here  in  this  world  of  spirits  I  was 
an  unscientific,  uninstructed  fellow. 

"  Give  me,"  I  said  brokenly,  "  but  the  low 
liest  chance  to  make  an  honorable  provision 
for  the  comfort  of  my  child  in  your  commu 
nity.  I  ask  no  more." 

The  boy  ran  chattering  to  me  as  I  said  these 
words ;  he  sprang  and  clasped  my  knees,  and 
clasped  my  neck,  and  put  his  little  lips  to 
mine,  and  rubbed  his  warm,  moist  curls  across 
my  cheek,  and  asked  me  where  his  mother 
was.  And  then  he  crooned  my  own  name 
over  and  again,  and  kissed  and  kissed  me,  and 
did  stroke  me  with  such  pretty  excesses  of  his 
little  tenderness  that  I  took  heart  and  held 
him  fast,  and  loved  him  and  blessed  fate  for 
him,  as  much  as  if  I  had  not  been  a  spirit ; 
more  than  any  but  a  lonely  and  remorseful 
spirit  could. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

IN  consequence,  as  I  suspected,  of  some  pri 
vate  influence  on  the  part  of  my  famous  friend, 
whose  importance  in  this  strange  world  seemed 
scarcely  below  that  which  he  held  in  the  other, 
—  a  marked  contrast  to  my  own  lot,  which  had 
been  thus  far  in  utter  reversal  of  every  law 
and  every  fact  of  my  earthly  life,  —  a  humble 
position  was  found  for  me,  connected  with  the 
great  institution  of  healing  which  he  superin 
tended  ;  and  here,  for  an  indefinite  time,  I 
worked  and  served.  I  found  myself  of  scarcely 
more  social  importance  than,  let  us  say,  the 
janitor  or  steward  in  my  old  hospital  at  home. 
This  circumstance,  however  galling,  could  no 
longer  surprise  me.  I  had  become  familiar 
enough  with  the  economy  of  my  new  surround 
ings  now  thoroughly  to  understand  that  I  was 
destitute  of  the  attainments  which  gave  men 
eminence  in  them.  I  was  conscious  that  I  had 


180  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

become  an__obscure  person ;  nay,  more  than 
this,  that  I  had  barely  brought  with  me  the 
requisites  for  being  tolerated  at  all  in  the  com 
munity.  It  had  begun  to  be  evident  to  me 
that  I  was  fortunate  in  obtaining  any  kind  of 
admission  to  citizenship.  This  alone  was  an 
experience  so  novel  to  me  that  it  was  an  oc 
cupation  in  itself,  for  a  time,  to  adjust  myself 
to  it. 

I  now  established  myself  with  my  boy  in 
such  a  home  as  could  be  made  for  us,  under 
the  circumstances.  It  was  far  inferior  to  most 
of  the  homes  which  I  observed  about  me ;  but 
the  child  lacked  no  necessary  comfort,  and  the 
luxuries  of  a  spiritual  civilization  I  did  not 
personally  crave  ;  they  had  a  foreign  air  to 
me,  as  the  customs^af  the  Tuileries  might 
have  had  to  Pocahontas;' 

With  dull  gratitude  for  such  plain  posses 
sions  as  now  were  granted  to  me,  I  set  myself 
to  my  daily  tasks,  and  to  the  care  and  rearing 
of  my  child. 

Work  I  found  an  unqualified  mercy.  It 
even  occurred  to  me  to  be  thankful  for  it,  and 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  181 

to  desire  to  express  what  I  felt  about  it  to  the 
unknown  Fate  or  Force  which  was  controlling 
my  history.  IJiad  been  all  my  life  such  a 
busy  man  that  the  vacuity  of  my  first  experi 
ence  after  dying  had  chafed  me  terribly.  To 
be  of  no  consequence  ;  not  to  be  in  demand ; 
not  to  be  depended  upon  by  a  thousand  people, 
and  for  a  thousand  things  ;  not  to  dash  some 
where  upon  important  errands ;  not  to  feel 
that  a  minute  was  a  treasure,  and  that  mine 
were  valued  as  hid  treasures  ;  not  to  know  that 
my  services  were  superior  ;  to  feel  the  canker 
of  idleness  eat  upon  me  like  one  of  the  'diseases 
which  I  had  considered  impossible  to  my  or 
ganization  ;  to  observe  the  hours,  which  had 
hitherto  been  invisible,  like  rear  forces  push 
ing  me  to  the  front ;  to  watch  the  crippled  mo 
ments,  which  had  always  flown  past  me  like 
mocking-birds;  to  know  to  the  full  the  abA 
sence  of  movement  in  life  ;  to  feel  deficiency 
of  purpose  like  paralysis  stiffen  me ;  to  have 
no  hope  of  anything  better,  and  not  to  know 
what  worse  might  be  before  me,  —  such  had 
been  my  first  experience  of  the  new  life.  It 


182  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

had  done  as  much  as  this  for  me  :  it  had  fitted 
me  for  the  humblest  form  of  activity  which  my 
qualifications  made  possible ;  it  had  taught  me 
the  elements  of  gratitude  for  an  improved  con 
dition,  as  suffering,  when  it  vibrates  to  the  in 
termission  of  relief,  teaches  cheerfulness  to  the 
sick. 

An  appreciable  sense  of  gratification,  which, 
if  it  could  not  be  called  pleasure,  was  at  least 
a  diminution  of  pain,  came  to  me  from  the  so 
ciety  of  my  friend,  the  distinguished  man  and 
powerful  spirit  who  had  so  befriended  me.  I 
admit  that  I  was  glad  to  have  a  man  to  deal 
with ;  though  I  did  not  therefore  feel  the  less 
a  loyalty  to  my  dear  and  faithful  patient,  whose 
services  to  me  had  been  so  true  and  tender.  I 
missed  her.  I  needed  her  counsel  about  the 
child.  I  would  fain  have  spoken  to  her  of  many 
little  matters.  I  watched  for  her,  and  won 
dered  that  she  came  no  more  to  us.  Although 
so  new  a  comer,  Mrs.  Faith  proved  to  be  a  per 
son  of  position  in  the  place  :  her  name  was 
well  and  honorably  known  about  the  neighbor 
hood  ;  and  I  therefore  easily  learned  that  she 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  183 

was  absent  on  a  journey.  It  was  understood 
that  she  had  been  called  to  her  old  home,  where 
for  some  reason  her  husband  and  her  child  had 
need  of  her.  It  was  her  precious  privilege  to 
minister  to  them,  I  knew  not  how ;  it  was  left 
to  me  to  imagine  why.  Bitterly  I  thought  of 
Helen.  Between  herself  and  me  the  awful 
gates  of  death  had  shut ;  to  pass  them,  though 
I  would  have  died  again  for  it,  —  to  pass  them, 
for  one  hour,  for  one  moment,  for  love's  sake, 
for  grief's  sake,  or  for  shame's,  or  for  pity's 
own,  —  I  was  forbidden. 

I  had  confided  the  circumstances  of  my  part 
ing  from  my  wife  to  no  one  of  my  new  ac 
quaintances.  In  the  high  order  of  character 
pervading  these  happy  people,  such  a  confes 
sion  would  have  borne  the  proportions  that  a 
crime  might  in  the  world  below.  Bearing  my 
secret  in  my  own  heart,  I  felt  like  a  felon  in 
this  holier  society.  I  cherished  it  guiltily  and 
miserably,  as  solitary  people  do  such  things ; 
it  seemed  to  me  like  an  ache  which  I  should 
go  on  bearing  forever.  I  remembered  how 
men  on  earth  used  to  trifle  with  a  phrase  called 


184  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

endless  punishment.  What  worse  punishment 
were  there,  verily,  than  the  consciousness  of 
having  done  the  sort  of  deed  that  I  had  ?  It 
seemed  to  me,  as  I  brooded  over  it,  one  of  the 
saddest  in  the  universe.  I  became  what  I 
should  once  have  readily  called  "  morbid  "  over 
this  thought.  There  seemed  to  me  nothing  in 
the  nature  of  remorse  itself  which  should,  if 

let  alone,  ever  come  to  a  visible  end. My 

longing  for  the  forgiveness  of  my  wife  gnawed 
upon  me. 

Sometimes  I  tried  to  remind  myself  that  I 
was  as  sure  of  her  love  and  of  her  mercy  as 
the  sun  was  of  arising  beyond  the  linden  that 
tapped  the  chamber  window  in  my  dear  lost 
home  ;  that  her  unfathomable  tenderness,  so 
far  passing  the  tenderness  of  women,  leaned 
out,  as  ready  to  take  me  back  to  itself  as  her 
white  arms  used  to  be  to  take  me  to  her  heart, 
when  I  came  later  than  usual,  after  a  hard  day's 
work,  tired  and  weather-beaten,  into  the  house, 
hurrying  and  calling  to  her. 

"Helen?    Helen?" 

But  the  anguish  of  the  thought  blotted  the 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  185 

comfort  out  of  it,  till,  for  very  longing  for 
her,  I  would  fain  almost  have  forgotten  her ; 
and  then  I  would  pray  never  to  forget  her  be 
fore  I  had  forgotten,  for  I  loved  her  so  that  I 
would  rather  think  of  her  and  suffer  because 
of  her  than  not  to  think  of  her  at  all.  In  all 
this  memorable  and  unhappy  period,  my  boy 
was  the  solace  of  my  soul.  I  gave  myself  to 
the  care  of  him  lovingly,  and  as  nearly  as  I  can 
recollect  I  did  not  chafe  against  the  narrow 
limits  of  my  lot  in  that  respect. 

It  occurred  to  me  sometimes  that  I  should 
once  have  called  this  a  humble  service  to  be 
the  visible  boundary  of  a  man's  life.  To  what 
had  all  those  old  attainments  come?  Com 
mand  of  science  ?  Developed  skill  ?  Public 
power  ?  Extended  fame  ?  All  those  forms  of 
personality  which  go  with  intellectual  position 
and  the  use  of  it?  Verily,  I  was  brought  to 
lowly  tasks;  we  left  them  to  women  in  the 
world  below.  But  really,  I  think  this  troubled 
me  less  than  it  might  have  done;  perhaps  less 
than  it  should  have  done.  I  accepted  the 
strange  reversal  of  my  fate  as  one  accepts  any 


186  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

turn  of  affairs  which,  he  is  convinced,  is  better 
than  he  might  have  expected.  It  had  begun 
to  be  evident  to  me  that  it  was  better  than  I 
had  deserved.  If  I  am  exceptional  in  being 
forced  to  admit  that  this  consciousness  was  a 
novelty  in  my  experience,  the  admission  is 
none  the  less  necessary  for  that.  I  had  been 
in  the  habit  of  considering  myself  rather  a  good 
fellow,  as  a  man  with  no  vices  in  particular  is 
apt  to.  I  had  possessed  no  standards  of  life 
below  which  my  own  fell  to  an  embarrassing 
point.  The  situation  to  which  I  was  now 
brought,  was  not  unlike  that  of  one  who  finds 
himself  in  a  land  where  there  are  new  and  del 
icate  instruments  for  indicating  the  state  of  the 
weather.  I  was  aware,  and  knew  that  my 
neighbors  were,  of  fluctuations  in  the  moral  at 
mosphere  which  had  never  before  come  under 
my  attention.  The  whole  subtle  and  tremen 
dous  force  of  public  sentiment  now  bore  upon 
me  to  make  me  uneasy  before  achievements 
with  which  I  had  hitherto  been  complacent.  It 
had  inconceivable  effects  to  live  in  a  commu 
nity  where  spiritual  character  formed  the  sole 
scale  of  social  position. 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  187 

I,  who  had  been  always  socially  distin 
guished,  found  myself  now  exposed  to  incessant 
mortifications,  such  as  spring  from  the  fact  that 
one  is  of  no  consequence. 

I  should  say,  however,  that  I  felt  this  much 
less  for  myself  than  for  my  child  ;  indeed,  that 
it  was  because  of  Boy  that  I  first  felt  the  fact 
at  all,  or  brooded  over  it  after  I  had  begun  to 
feel  it. 

The  little  fellow  developed  rapidly,  much 
faster  than  children  of  his  age  do  in  the  human 
life  ;  he  ceased  to  be  a  baby,  and  was  a  little 
boy  while  I  was  yet  wondering  what  I  should 
do  with  him  when  he  had  outgrown  his  infancy. 
His  intellect,  his  character,  his  physique,  lifted 
themselves  with  a  kind  of  luxuriance  of  growth, 
such  as  plants  show  in  tropical  countries  ;  he  / 
blossomed  as  a  thing  does  which  has  every  ad 
vantage  and  no  hindrance  ;  nature  moved  mag 
nificently  to  her  ends  in  him  ;  it  was  a  delight 
to  watch  such  vigorous  processes  ;  he  was  a 
rich,  un thwarted  little  creature.  With  all  a 
father's  heart  and  a  physician's  sensibility,  I 
was  proud  of  him. 


188  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

I  was  proud  of  him,  alas !  until  I  began  to 
perceive  that,  as  matters  were  working,  the 
boy  was  morally  certain  to  be  ashamed  of  me. 
This  was  a  hard  discovery  ;  and  it  went  hard 
with  me  after  I  had  made  it.  But  nothing 
could  reduce  the  poignancy  of  the  inquiry  with 
which  I  had  first  gathered  him  to  my  heart,  in 
the  solitudes  where  he  had  found  me  lurking : 
If  I  were  a  spiritual  outcast,  what  would  be 
come  of  Boy  ?  " 

As  the  child  waxed  in  knowledge  and  in 
strength,  questions  like  these  dropped  from  his 
lips  so  frequently  that  they  distressed  me :  — 

"  Papa,  what  is  God  ? 

"  Papa,  who  is  worship  ?  " 

"  Tell  me  how  boys  pray." 

"  Is  it  a  kind  of  game  ?  '"' 

"  What  is  Christ,  papa  ?  Is  it  people's 
Mother  ?  What  is  it  for  ?  " 

My  friend,  the  eminent  surgeon,  left  me 
much  to  myself  in  these  perplexities ;  regard 
ing  my  natural  reserve,  and  trusting,  I  thought, 
to  nature,  or  to  some  Power  beyond  nature,  to 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  189 

assist  me.  But  on  one  occasion,  happening  to 
be  present  when  the  child  interrogated  me  in 
this  manner,  he  bent  a  piercing  gaze  upon 
me. 

"  Why  do  you  not  answer  the  child,  Esmer- 
ald  Thorne  ?  "  he  asked  me  in  a  voice  of  au 
thority. 

"  Alas,"  I  said,  "  I  have  no  answer.     I  know 
nothing  of  these  matters.     They  have  been  so  j 
foreign  to  my  temperament,  that  —  I "  — 

But  here  I  faltered.  I  felt  ashamed  of  my 
excuse,  and  of  myself  for  offering  it. 

"  It  is  a  trying  position  for  a  man  to  be  put 
in,"  I  ventured  to  add,  putting  an  arm  about 
my  boy ;  "  naturally,  I  wish  my  child  to  de 
velop  in  accordance  with  the  social  and  educa 
tional  system  of  the  place." 

"  Naturally,  I  should  suppose,"  replied  he, 
dryly.  He  offered  me  no  further  suggestion 
on  the  subject,  and  with  some  severity  of  man 
ner  moved  to  leave  me.  Now  it  happened  to 
be  the  vesper  hour  in  the  hospital,  and  my 
visitor  was  going  to  his  patients,  the  "  sick  of 
soul,"  with  whom  he  was  wont  to  join  in  the 


190  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

evening  chant  which,  at  a  certain  hour,  daily 
arose  from  every  roof  in  the  wide  city,  and 
waxed  mightily  to  the  skies.  It  was  music  of  a 
high  order,  and  I  always  enjoyed  it ;  no  person 
of  any  musical  taste  could  have  done  otherwise. 

"  Listen !  "  said  my  friend,  as  he  turned  to 
depart  from  me.  I  had  only  to  glance  at  his 
rapt  and  noble  countenance  to  perceive  the 
high  acoustic  laws  which  separated  his  sensi 
bility  to  the  vesper  from  my  own.  To  him  it 
was  religious  expression.  To  me  it  was  classi 
cal  music. 

While  I  was  thus  thinking,  from  the  great 
wards  of  the_Home_of  Healing  the  prayer 
went  up.  The  sinful,  the  sorely  stricken,  the 
ungodly,  the  ignorant  of  heavenly  mercy,  all 
the  diseased  of  spirit  who  were  gathered  there 
in  search  of  the  soul's  health,  sang  together : 
not  as  the  morning-stars  which  shouted  for  joy, 
but  like  living  hearts  that  cried  for  purity ; 
yea,  like  hearts  that  so  desired  it,  they  would 
have  broken  for  it,  and  blessed  God. 

"  God  is  a  Spirit.  God  is  a  Spirit.  We 
would  worship  Him.  We  would  worship 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  191 

JS^^WL   spirit.     Yea,  in    spirit.     And  in 
tenth" 

My  little  boy  was  playing  in  the  garden, 
decking  himself  with  the  strange  and  beautiful 
flowers  which  luxuriated  in  the  spot.  I  re 
member  that  he  had  tall  white  lilies  and  scar 
let  passion  flowers,  or  something  like  them,  held 
above  one  shoulder,  and  floating  like  a  banner 
in  the  bright,  white  air.  He  was  absorbed  in 
his  sport,  and  had  the  sweet  intentness  of  ex 
pression  between  the  eyes  that  his  mother  used 
to  wear.  When  the  vesper  anthems  sounded 
out,  the  child  stopped,  and  turned  his  nobly 
moulded  head  toward  the  unseen  singers.  A 
puzzled  and  afterward  a  saddened  look  clouded 
his  countenance  ;  he  listened  for  a  moment, 
and  then  walked  slowly  to  me,  trailing  the 
white  and  scarlet  flowers  in  the  grass  behind 
him  as  he  came. 

"  Father,  teach  me  how  to  sing !  The  other 
children  do.  I  'm  the  only  little  boy  I  know 
that  can't  sing  that  nice  song.  Teach  me  it !  " 
he  demanded. 


192  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

"  Alas,  my  son !  "  I  answered,  "  how  can  I 
teach  you  that  which  I  myself  know  not  ?  " 

"  L thought  boys'  fathers  knew  everything," 
objected  the  child,  bending  his  brows  severely 
on  me. 

A  certain  constraint,  a  something  not  unlike 
distrust,  a  subtle  barrier  which  one  could  not 
define,  but  which  one  felt  the  more  uncomforta 
bly  for  this  very  reason,  after  this  incident, 
seemed  to  arise  in  the  child's  consciousness  be 
tween  himself  and  me.  As  docile,  as  dutiful, 
as  beautiful  as  ever,  as  loving  and  as  lovable, 
yet  the  little  fellow  would  at  times  withdraw 
from  me  and  stand  off ;  as  if  he  looked  on  at 
me,  and  criticised  me,  and  kept  his  criticism  to 
himself.  Verily  the  child  was  growing.  He 
had  become  a  separate  soul.  In  a  world  of 
souls,  what  was  mine  —  miserable,  ignorant, 
half-developed,  wholly  unfit  —  what  was  mine 
to  do  with  his  ?  How  was  I  to  foster  him  ? 

When  I  came  face  to  face  with  the  problem 
of  Boy's  general  education,  this  question 
pressed  upon  me  bitterly.  Looking  abroad 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  193 

upon  the  people  and  their  principles  of  life,  the 
more  I  studied  them,  the  more  did  I  stand 
perplexed  before  tfoem.^j  was  in  the_ 
of  a  vast  Theocracy/.  Plainly,  our  community 
was  but  one  of  who  knew  how  many  ?  —  gov 
erned  by  an  unseen  Being,  upon  laws  of  which 
I  knew  nothing.  The  service  of  this  invisible 
Monarch  vied  only  with  the  universal  affection 
for  Him.  )  So  far  as  I  could  understand  the 
spiritual  life  at  all,  it  seemed  to  be  the  highest 
possible  development  and  expression  of  love. 
What  these  people  did  that  was  noble,  pure, 
and  fine,  they  did,  not  because  they  must,  but 
because  they  would.  They  believed  because 
they  chose. )  They  were  devout  because  they 
wished  to  be.  They  were  unselfish  and  true, 
and  what  below  we  should  have  called  "  un 
worldly,"  because  it  was  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world.  They  seemed  so  happy,  they 
had  such  content  in  life,  that  I  could  have 
envied  them  from  my  soul. 

How,  now,  was  I  to  compass  this  national 
kind  of  happiness  for  my  son  ?  Misery  I  could 
bear;  I  was  sick  and  sore  with  it,  but  I  was 


194  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

used  to  it.  My  child  must  never  suffer. 
Passed  beyond  the  old  system  of  suffering, 
why  should  he  ?  Joy  was  his  birthright  in 
this  blessed  place. 

How  was  I5  being  at  discord  from  it,  to 
bring  my  child  into  harmony  with  it  ?  I  was 
at  odds,  to  start  on,  with  the  whole  system  of 
education.  The  letters,  art,  science,  industry, 
of  the  country  were  of  a  sort  that  I  knew  not. 
They  were  consecrated  to  ends  with  which  I 
was  unfamiliar.  They  were  pursued  in  a  spirit 
incomprehensible  to  me.  They  were  dedicated 
to  the  interests  of  a  Being,  Himself  a  stranger 
to  me.  Proficiency,  superiority,  were  rated  on 
a  scale  quite  out  of  my  experience.  To  be  dis 
tinguished  was  to  possess  high  spiritual  traits. 
Deep  at  the  root  of  every  public  custom,  of 
every  private  deed,  there  hid  the  seed  of  one 
universal  emotion,  —  the  love  of  a  living  soul 
for  the  Being  who  had  created  it. 

I,  who  knew  not  of  this  feeling,  I,  who  was 
as  a  savage  among  this  intelligence,  who  was 
no  more  than  an  object  of  charity  at  the  hands 
of  this  community,  —  what  had  I  to  offer  to 
my  son  ? 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  195 

A  father's  personal  position  ?  Loving  influ 
ence  ?  Power  to  push  the  little  fellow  to  the 
front  ?  A  chance  to  endow  him  with  every 
social  opportunity,  every  educational  privilege, 
such  as  it  is  a  father's  pride  to  enrich  his  child 
wherewith  ? 

Nay,  verily.  An  obscure  man  ignorant  of 
the  learning  of  the  land,  destitute  of  its 
wealth,  unacquainted  among  its  magnates,  and 
without  a  share  in  its  public  interests  —  noth 
ing  was  I ;  nothing  had  I ;  nothing  could  I 
hope  to  do,  or  be,  for  which  my  motherless 
boy  should  live  to  bless  his  fathers  name. 
Stung  by  such  thoughts  as  these,  which  ran 
kled  the  more  in  me  the  longer  I  cherished 
them,  I  betook  myself  to  brooding  and  to  soli 
tary  strolling  in  quiet  places,  where  I  could 
ponder  on  my  situation  undisturbed. 

I  was  in  great  intellectual  and  spiritual 
stress,  less  for  myself  than  for  the  child ;  not 
more  for  him,  than  because  of  his  mother. 
What  would  Helen  say  ?  How  would  she  hold 
me  to  account  for  him  ?  How  should  I  meet 
her  —  if  I  ever  saw  her  face  again  —  to  own 


196  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

myself  scarcely  other  than  a  pauper  in  this 
spiritual  kingdom ;  our  child  an  untaught,  un 
important  little  fellow,  of  no  more  consequence 
in  this  place  than  the  gamins  of  the  street  be 
fore  her  door  ? 

In  these  cold  and  solitary  experiences  which 
many  a  man  has  known  before  me,  and  many 
more  will  follow  after  me,  the  soul  is  like  a 
skater,  separated  from  his  fellows  upon  a  field 
of  ice.  Every  movement  that  he  makes  seems 
to  be  bearing  him  farther  from  the  society  and 
the  sympathy  of  his  kind.  Too  benumbed, 
perhaps,  to  turn,  he  glides  on,  helpless  as  an 
ice-boat  before  the  wind.  Conscious  of  his 
mistake,  of  his  danger,  and  knowing  not  how 
to  retract  the  one  or  avoid  the  other,  his  help 
less  motions,  seemingly  guided  by  idleness,  by 
madness,  or  by  folly,  lead  him  to  the  last  place 
whither  he  would  have  led  himself,  —  the  weak 
spot  in  the  ice. 

Suddenly,  he  falls  crashing,  and  sinks. 
Then  lo  !  as  he  goes  under,  crying  out  that  he 
is  lost  because  no  man  is  with  him,  hands  are 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  197 

down-stretched,  swimmers  plunge,  the  crowd 
gathers,  and  it  seems  the  whole  world  stoops  to 
save  him.  The  sympathy  of  his  kind  wanted 
nothing  but  a  chance  to  reach  him. 

I  cannot  tell ;  no  man  can  tell  such  things  ; 
I  cannot  explain  how  I  came  to  do  it,  or  even 
why  I  came  to  do  it.  But  it  was  on  this  wise 
with  me.  Being  alone  one  evening  in  a  forest, 
at  twilight,  taking  counsel  with  myself  and  pon 
dering  upon  the  mystery  from  which  I  could 
not  gather  light,  these  words  came  into  my 
heart ;  and  when  I  had  cherished  them  in  my 
heart  for  a  certain  time,  I  uttered  them  aloud  : 

"Thou  great  God!  If  there  be.  a  God. 
Eeveal  Thyself  unto  my  immortal  soul]  If  I 
have  a  soul  immortal." 


CHAPTER  XV. 

MY  little  boy  came  flying  to  me  one  fair 
day ;  he  cried  out  that  he  had  news  for  me, 
that  great  things  were  going  on  in  the  town. 
A  visitor  was  expected,  whose  promised  arrival 
„/  had  set  the  whole  place  astir  with  joy.  The 
child  knew  nothing  of  what  or  whom  he 
spoke,  but  I  gathered  the  impression  that 
some  distinguished  guest  was  about  to  reach 
us^to  whom  the  honors  of  the  city  would  be 
extended.  The  matter  did  not  interest  me ; 
I  had  so  little  in  common  with  the  people; 
and  I  was  about  to  dismiss  it  idly,  when  Boy 
posed  me  by  demanding  that  I  should  per 
sonally  conduct  him  through  the  events  of  the 
gala  day.  He  was  unusually  insistent  about 
this  ;  for  he  was  a  docile  little  fellow,  who 
seldom  urged  his  will  uncomfortably  against 
my  own.  But  in  this  case  I  could  not  com 
promise  with  him,  and  half  reluctantly  I 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  199 

yielded.  I  had  no  sooner  done  so  than  an 
urgent  message  to  the  same  effect  reached  me 
from  my  friend  the  surgeon. 

"  Go  with  the  current  to-day,"  he  wrote ; 
"  it  sets  strongly.  Question  it  not.  Resist  it 
not.  Follow  and  be  swept." 

Immediately  upon  this  some  neighbors  came 
hurriedly  in,  and  spoke  with  me  of  the  same 
matter  eagerly.  They  pleaded  with  me  on  no 
account  to  miss  the  event  of  the  day,  upon 
whose  specific  nature  they  were  somewhat  reti 
cent.  They  evinced  the  warmest  possible  in 
terest  in  my  personal  relation  to  it ;  as'  people 
do  who  possess  a  happy  secret  that  they  wish, 
but  may  not  feel  at  liberty,  fully  to  share  with 
another. 

They  were  excited,  and  overflowed  with 
happiness.  Their  very  presence  raised  my 
spirits.  I  could  not  remember  when  I  had 
received  precisely  this  sort  of  attention  from 
my  neighbors ;  and  it  was,  somehow,  a  com 
fort  to  me.  I  should  not  have  supposed  that 
I  should  value  being  made  of  consequence  in 
this  trifling  way  ;  yet  it  warmed  my  heart.  I 


200  THE  GATES  BETWEEN. 

felt  less  desolate  than  usual,  when  I  took  the 
hand  of  my  happy  boy,  and  set  forth. 

The  whole  vicinity  was  aroused.  Every 
body  moved  in  one  direction,  like  "  a  current," 
as  my  friend  had  said.  Shining,  solemn,  and 
joyous  faces  filled  the  streets  and  fields.  The 
voices  of  the  people  were  subdued  and  sweet. 
There  was  no  laughter,  only  smiles,  and  gentle 
expectation,  and  low  consulting  together,  and 
some  there  were  who  mused  apart.  The  "  sick 
of  soul "  were  present  with  the  happier  folk : 
these  first  had  a  wistful  look,  as  of  those  not 
certain  of  themselves  or  of  their  welcome ;  but 
I  saw  that  they  were  tenderly  regarded  by  the 
more  fortunate.  I  myself  was  most  gently 
treated ;  many  persons  spoke  with  me,  and  I 
heard  expressions  of  pleasure  at  my  presence. 
In  the  crowd,  as  we  moved  on,  I  began  to 
recognize  here  and  there  a  face;  acquaint 
ances,  whom  I  had  known  in  the  lower  life, 
became  visible  to  me.  Now  and  then,  some 
one,  hastening  by,  said :  — 

"  Why,  Doctor !  "  and  then  I  would  perceive 
some  old  patients  ;  the  look  which  only  loving 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  201 


patients  wear  was  on  their  faces,  the  old  im 
pulse  of  trust  and  gratitude ;  they  would 
grasp  me  heartily  by  the  hand  ;  this  touched 
me ;  I  began  to  feel  a  stir  of  sympathy  with 
the  general  excitement ;  I  was  glad  that  I  had 
joined  the  people. 

I  pressed  the  hand  of  my  little  boy,  who  was 
running  and  leaping  at  my  side.  He  looked 
confidingly  up  into  my  face,  and  asked  me 
questions  about  the  day's  event ;  but  these  I 
could  not  answer. 

"  God  knows,  my  child,"  I  said.  "  Your 
father  is  not  a  learned  man." 

As  we  swept  on,  the  crowd  thickened  visibly. 
The  current  from  the  city  met  streams  from 
the  fields,  the  hills,  the  forests ;  all  the  dis 
tance  overflowed  ;  the  concourse  began  to  be 
come  imposing.  Here  and  there  I  observed 
still  other  faces  that  were  not  strange  to  me ; 
flashes  of  recognition  passed  between  us ;  \ 
some  also  of  my  own  kin,  dead  years  ago,  I 
saw,  far  off,  and  I  felt  drawn  to  them.  In 
the  distance,  not  near  enough  to  speak  with 
her,  shining  and  smiling,  I  thought  that  I 


202  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

perceived  Mrs.  Faith,  once  more.  My  boy 
threw  kisses  to  her  and  laughed  merrily ;  he 
was  electric  with  the  universal  joy ;  he  seemed 
to  dance  upon  the  air  like  a  tuft  of  thistle 
down  ;  to  be  "light-hearted"  was  to  be  light- 
bodied  ;  the  little  fellow's  frame  seemed  to 
exist  only  as  the  expression  of  his  soul.  I 
thought :  — 

"If  he  is  properly  educated  in  this  place, 
what  a  spirit  he  will  make !  "  I  was  amazed 
to  see  his  capacity  for  happiness.  I  thought 
of  his  mother.  I  wished  to  be  happy,  too. 

Now,  as  we  moved  on  toward  the  plain,  the 
sound  of  low  chanting  began  to  swell  from 
the  crowd.  The  strain  gained  in  distinctness ; 
power  gathered  on  it;  passion  grew  in  it; 
prayer  ascended  from  it.  I  could  not  help 
being  moved  by  this  billow  of  sweet  sound. 
The  forms  and  faces  of  the  people  melted  to 
gether  before  my  eyes ;  their  outlines  seemed 
to  quiver  in  the  flood  of  song ;  it  was  as  if 
their  manifold  personalities  blurred  in  the 
unity  of  their  feeling  ;  they  seemed  to  me,  as 
I  regarded  them,  like  the  presence  of  one 


TV, 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  203 

great,  glad,  loving  human  soul.  This  was 
their  supplication.  Thus  arose  the  heavenly 
song :  — 

"  Thou  that  takest  away 
The  sins  of  the  world ! 
Whosoever  believeth 
Shall  have  life. 
Whosoever  believeth  on  Thee 
Shall  have  eternal  life. 
Thou  that  takest  away 
The  sins  of  the  world  ! 
And  givest  —  and  givest 
Eternal  life!  " 

"  I  cannot  sing  that  pretty  song,"  said  my 
boy  sadly.  "  There  is  nobody  to  teach  me. 
Father,  I  wish  you  were  a  learned  man !  " 

Now,  this  smote  me  to  the  heart,  so  that  I 
would  even  have  lifted  my  voice  and  sought  to 
join  the  chant,  for  the  child's  sake,  and  to 
comfort  him  ;  but  when  I  would  have  done 
so,  behold,  I  could  not  lift  my  soul ;  it  resisted 
me  like  a  weight  too  heavy  for  my  lips  ;  for,  in 
this  land,  song  never  rises  higher  than  the 
level  of  the  soul ;  there  are  fine  laws  govern 
ing  this  fact  whose  nature  I  may  not  explain, 


204  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

and  could  not  at  that  time  even  understand, 
but  of  the  fact  itself  I  testify. 

"  Alas,  alas,  my  son  !  "  I  said,  "  would  God 
I  were !  " 

Now  suddenly,  while  I  was  conversing  with 
my  child,  I  perceived  a  stir  among  the  people, 
as  if  they  moved  to  greet  some  person  who  was 
advancing  toward  them.  I  looked  in  the  direc 
tion  whither  all  eyes  were  turned ;  but  I  saw 
nothing  to  account  for  the  excitement.  While 
I  stood  gazing  and  wondering,  at  one  move 
ment,  as  if  it  were  by  one  heart-beat,  the  great 
throng  bowed  their  heads.  Some  object,  some 
Presence  of  which  I  could  not  catch  a  glimpse, 
had  entered  among  them.  Whispers  ran 
from  lip  to  lip.  I  heard  men  say  that  He  was 
here,  that  He  was  there,  that  He  was  yonder, 
that  He  had  passed  them,  that  He  touched 
them. 

"  He  blesseth  me  !  "  they  murmured. 

"  And  me  !     And  me !  " 

"  Oh,  even  me  !  " 

I  heard  low  cries  of  delight  and  sobs  of 
moving  tenderness.  I  heard  strange,  wistful 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  205 

words  from  the  disabled  of  soul  who  were 
among  us,  —  pleadings  for  I  knew  not  what, 
offered  to  I  knew  not  whom.  I  heard  words 
of  sorrow  and  words  of  utter  love,  and  I  saw 
signs  of  shame,  and  looks  of  rapture,  and  at 
titudes  of  peace  and  eager  hope.  I  saw  men 
kneeling  in  reverence.  I  saw  them  prostrate 
in  petition.  I  saw  them  as  if  they  were  cling 
ing  affectionately  to  hands  that  they  kissed  and 
wept  upon.  I  saw  them  bowed  as  one  bows 
before  the  act  of  benediction. 

These  things  I  perceived,  but  alas,  I  could 
perceive  no  more.  What  went  I  out,  with  the 
heavenly,  happy  people,  for  to  see  ? 

Naught,  God  help  me,  worse  than  naught ; 
for  mine  eyes  were  holden. 

Dark  amid  that  spiritual  vision,  I  stood 
stricken.  Alone  in  all  that  blessedness,  was  I 
bereft? 

Whom,  for  very  rapture,  did  they  melt  to 
welcome  ?  Whom  greeted  they,  with  that  great 
wave  of  love,  so  annihilating  to  their  conscious 
ness  of  themselves  that  I  knew  when  I  beheld 
it,  I  had  never  seen  the  face  of  Love  before? 


206  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

Among  them  all,  I  stood  alone  —  blind, 
blind.  Them  I  saw,  and  their  blessedness, 
till  I  was  filled  with  such  a  sacred  envy  of  it 
that  I  would  have  suffered  some  new  misery  to 
share  it.  But  He  who  did  move  among  them 

O 

thus  royally  and  thus  benignly,  who  passed 
from  each  man  to  each  man,  like  the  highest 
longing  and  the  dearest  wish  of  his  own  heart, 
who  was  to  them  one  knew  not  whether  the 
more  of  Master  or  of  chosen  Friend,  —  Him, 
alas,  I  saw  not.  To  me  He  was  denied.  No 
spiritual  optic  nerve  in  me  announced  His 
presence.  I  was  blind,  —  I  was  blind. 

Overcome  by  this  discovery,  I  did  not  notice 
that  my  boy  had  loosened  his  hold  upon  my 
hand  until  his  little  fingers  were  quite  disen 
gaged  from  my  clasp  ;  a^nd  then,  turning  to 
speak  to  him,  I  found  that  he  had  slipped  from 
me  in  the  crowd.  This  was  so  great  and  the 
absorption  so  universal  that  no  one  noticed 
the  mishap  ;  and  grateful,  indeed,  at  that  mis 
erable  moment,  to  be  unobserved,  I  went  in 
search  of  him. 

Now,  I  did  not  find    the  child,  though   I 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  207 

sought  long  and  patiently  ;  and  when  I  was  be 
ginning  to  feel  perplexed,  and  to  wonder  what 
chance  could  have  befallen  him,  I  turned,  and 
behold,  while  I  had  been  searching,  the  throng 
had  dispersed. 

Night  was  coming  on.  All  the  citizens 
were  strolling  to  their  homes.  On  street,  and 
plain,  and  hill  stirred  the  shadows  of  the  de 
parting  people.  They  passed  quietly.  Every 
voice  was  hushed.  All  the  world  was  as  still 
as  a  heart  is  after  prayer. 

In  the  silent  purple  plain,  only  I  was  left 
alone.  Moved  by  solitude,  which  is  the  soul's 
sincerity,  I  yielded  myself  to  strange  impulses, 
and  turning  to  the  spot,  where  He  who  was 
invisible  had  passed  or  seemed  to  pass,  I 
sought  to  find  upon  the  ground  and  in  the 
dusk  some  chance  imprint  of  His  steps.  To 
do  this,  it  was  necessary  for  me  to  stoop ; 
and  while  I  was  bowed,  searching  for  some 
least  sign  of  Him,  in  the  dew  and  dark,  I 
knew  not  what  wave  of  shame  and  sorrow 
came  upon  me,  but  I  fell  upon  my  knees. 
There  was  no  creature  to  hear  me,  and  I  spoke 
aloud,  and  said :  — 


208  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

"  Thou  departest  from  me,  for  1  am  a  sin 
ful  man,  0  Lord !  "  .  .  . 

" Lord"  I  said,  "  that  I  may  receive  my 
sight!" 

I  thought  I  had  more  to  say  than  this,  but 
when  I  had  uttered  these  words  no  more  did 
follow  them.  They  seemed  to  fill  my  soul  and 
flood  it  till  it  overflowed. 

And  when  I  had  lifted  up  my  eyes,  the 
first  sight  which  did  meet  them  was  the  face 
of  my  own  child.  I  saw  at  once  that  he  was 
quite  safe  and  happy.  But  I  saw  that  he  was 
not  alone. 

One  towered  above  me,  strange  and  dim, 
who  held  the  little  fellow  in  His  arms.  When 
I  cried  out  to  Him,  He  smiled.  And  He  did 
give  the  child  to  me,  and  spoke  with  me. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  natural  step  to  knowledge  is  through 
faith.  Even  human  science  teaches  as  much 
as  this.  The  faith  of  the  scholar  in  the 
theoretic  value  of  his  facts  precedes  his  in 
telligent  use  of  them.  Invention  dreams  be 
fore  it  does.  Discovery  believes  before  it 
finds.  Creation  imagines  before  it  achieves. 

Spiritual  intelligence,  when  it  came  at  last, 
to  me,  came  with  something  of  the  jar  of  all 
abnormal  processes.  The  wholesome  move 
ments  of  trust  I  had  omitted  from  my  soul's 
economy.  The  function  of  faith  was  a  dis 
used  thing  in  me.  Truth  had  to  treat  me  as 
an  undeveloped  mind. 

In  the  depth  of  my  consciousness,  I  knew 
that,  come  what  might,  I  had  forever  lost- the 
chance  to  be  a  symmetrical,  healthy  human 
creature,  whose  spiritual  faculties  are  exer 
cised  like  his  brain  or  muscle  i  who  has  lived 


210  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

upon  the  earth,  and  loved  it,  and  gathered  its 
wealth  and  sweetness  and  love  of  living  into 
his  being,  as  visible  food  whereby  to  create 
invisible  stature ;  whose  earthly  experience 
has  carried  him  on,  as  Nature  carries  growth, 
—  unconsciously,  powerfully,  perfectly,  into  a 
diviner  life.  Forever  it  must  remain  with  me 
that  I  had  missed  the  natural  step. 

If  I  say  that  the  realization  of  knowledge 
was  the  first  thing  to  teach  me  the  value  of 
faith,  I  shall  be  understood  by  those  who  may 
have  read  this  narrative  with  any  sort  of 
sympathy  to  the  present  point ;  and  for  the 
rest,  some  wiser,  better  man  than  I  must 
write. 

I  do  not  address  those  who  follow  these 
pages  as  I  myself  should  once  have  done.  I 
do  not  hope  to  make  myself  intelligible  to 
you,  as  I  would  to  God  I  could !  Personal 
misery  is  intelligible,  and  the  shock  of  belated 
discovery.  But  the  experience  of  another  in 
matters  of  this  kind  has  not  a  "  scientific  " 
character.  ^ 

No  one   can  know  better  than  I  how  my 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  211 

story  will  be  dismissed  as  something  which  is 
not  "  a  fact." 

In  the  times  to  be,  it  is  my  belief  that  there 
shall  yet  arise  a  soul,  worthier  of  the  sacred 
task  than  I,  to  which  shall  be  given  the  per 
ilous  and  precious  commission  of  interpreter 
between  the  visible  life  and  the  life  invisible. 
On  this  soul  high  privilege  will  be  bestowed, 
and  awful  opportunity.  Through  it  the  deaf 
shall  hear,  the  dumb  shall  speak.  The  be-C 
reaved  shall  bless  it,  and  the  faint  of  heart 
shall  lean  on  it,  and  those  who  know  not  God 
shall  listen  to  it,  and  the  power  of  God  shall 
be  upon  it.  But  mine  is  not  that  soul. 

Even  as  One  who  was  above  man  did  elect 
to  experience  the  earthly  lot  of  man  to  save 
him  ;  so  one  who  is  a  man  among  men  may 
yet  be  permitted  to  use  the  heavenly  lot  in 
such  wise  as  to  comfort  them.  The  first  mis 
sion  called  for  superhuman  power.  The  sec 
ond  may  need  only  human  purity. 

I  now  enter  upon  a  turn  in  my  narrative, 
where  my  vehicle  of  communication  begins  to 
fail  me.  Human  language,  as  employed  upon 


212  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

the  earth,  has  served  me  to  some  extent  to  ex 
press  those  phases  of  celestial  fact  upon  which 
I  still  looked  with  earth-blind  eyes.  With 
I .  spiritual  vision  conies  the  immediate  need  of  a 
spiritual  vocabulary.  Like  most  men  of  my 
temperament  and  training,  I  have  been  accus 
tomed  to  some  caution  in  the  use  of  words.  I 
know  not  any,  which  would  be  intelligible  to 
the  readers  of  this  record,  that  can  serve  to  ex 
press  my  experiences  onward  from  this  point. 

"  A  man  becomes  terrestrialized  as  he  grows 
older,"  said  an  unbeliever  of  our  day,  once,  to 
me. 

It  is  at  least  true  that  the  terrestrial  intel 
lect  celestializes  by  the  hardest ;  and  it  re 
mains  obvious,  as  it  was  written,  that  the 
things  which  are  prepared  may  not  enter  into 
the  heart  of  man. 

This  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  my 
life  from  the  solemn  hour  which  I  have  re 
corded  underwent  revolutions  too  profound  for 
me  to  desire  to  utter  them,  and  that  most  of  my 
experiences  were  of  a  nature  which  I  lack  the 
means  to  report.  My  story  draws  to  a  stop,  as 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  213 

a  cry  of  anguish  comes  to  a  hush  of  peace. 
What  word  is  there  to  say  ? 

There  is,  indeed,  one.  With  lips  that  trem 
ble  and  praise  God,  I  add  it. 

At  a  period  not  immediately  following  the 
event  which  I  have  described,  yet  not  so  far 
beyond  it  that  the  time,  as  I  recall  it,  seemed 
wearisome  to  me,  I  received  a  summons  to  go 
upon  an  errand  to  a  distant  place.  It  was  the 
first  time  that  I  had  been  intrusted  with  any 
business  of  a  wider  nature  than  the  care  of  my 
own  affairs  or  the  immediate  offices  of  neigh 
borhood,  and  I  was  gratified  thereby.  I  had, 
indeed,  longed  to  be  counted  worthy  to  per 
form  some  special  service  at  the  will  of  Him 
who  guided  all  our  service,  and  had  cherished 
in  my  secret  heart  some  project  of  praying  that 
I  might  be  elected  to  a  special  task  which  had 
grown,  from  much  musing,  dear  to  me.  I  did 
most  deeply  desire  to  become  worthy  to  wear 
the  seal  of  a  commission  to  the  earth ;  but  I 
had  ceased  to  urge  the  selfish  cry  of  my  per 
sonal  heart-break.  I  did  not  pray  now  for  the 


I 


214  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

precious  right  to  visit  my  own  home,  nor  weary 
the  Will  in  which  I  had  learned  to  confide  with 
passionate  demands  for  my  beloved.  I  may 
rather  say  that  I  had  come  almost  to  feel  that 
when  I  was  worthy  to  see  Helen  I  should  be 
worthy  of  life  eternal ;  and  that  I  had  dropped 
my  love  and  my  longing  and  my  shame  into 
the  Hands  of  Infinite  Love,  and  seen  them 
jlose  over  these,  as  over  a  trust. 

The  special  matter  to  which  I  refer  was 
this :  I  desired  to  be  permitted  to  visit  human 
homes,  and  set  myself,  as  well  as  I  might,  to 
the  effort  of  cultivating  their  kindliness.  I 
longed  to  cherish  the  sacred  graces  of  human 
speech.  }I  wished  to  emphasize  the  opportunity 
of  those  who  love  each  other.  I  groaned 
within  me,  till  I  might  teach  the  preciousness 
and  the  poignancy  of  words.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  if  I  might  but  set  the  whole  force  of 
a  man's  experience  and  a  spirit's  power  to 
make  an  irritable  scene  in  loving  homes  held 
as  degrading  as  a  blow,  that  I  could  say  what 
no  man  ever  said  before,  and  do  what  no  spirit 
would  ever  do  again. 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  215 

If  this  be  called  an  exaggerated  view  of  a 
specific  case,  I  can  only  say  that  every  human 
life  learns  one  lesson  perfectly,  and  is  quali 
fied  to  teach  that,  and  that  alone,  as  no  other 
can.  This  was  mine. 

When,  therefore,  I  received  the  summons  to 
which  I  have  alluded,  I  inferred  that  the  wish 
of  my  heart  had  been  heard,  and  I  set  forth 
joyfully,  expecting  to  be  sent  upon  some  service 
of  the  nature  at  which  I  have  hinted.  My 
soul  was  full  of  it,  and  I  made  haste  to  de 
part,  putting  no  question  in  the  way  of  my  obe 
dience.  No  information,  indeed,  was  granted 
to  me  beyond  the  fact  that  I  should  follow 
a  certain  course  until  I  came  to  its  apparent 
end,  and  there  await  what  should  occur,  and 
act  as  my  heart  prompted.  The  vagueness 
of  this  command  stirred  my  curiosity  a  little, 
I  confess ;  but  that  only  added  to  the  pleas 
ure  of  the  undertaking.  It  would  be  dif 
ficult  to  say  how  much  relief  I  found  in  being 
occupied  once  again  to  some  purpose,  like  a 
man.  But  it  would  be  impossible  to  tell  the 
solemn  happiness  I  had  in  being  counted  fit 


216  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

humbly  to  fulfill  the  smallest  trust  placed  in 
me  by  Him  who  was  revealed,  at  this  late, 
last  moment,  after  all,  to  me,  unworthy. 

I  set  forth  alone.  The  child  was  left  behind 
me  with  a  neighbor,  for  so  I  thought  the  way 
of  wisdom  in  this  matter.  Following  only  the 
general  directions  which  I  had  received,  I 
found  myself  soon  within  the  open  country  to 
ward  the  region  of  the  hills.  As  I  advanced, 
the  scenery  became  familiar  to  me,  and  I  was 
not  slow  to  recognize  the  path  as  the  one  which 
I  myself  had  trodden  on  my  first  entrance  to 
the  city  wherein  of  recent  days  I  had  found  my 
home.  I  stopped  to  consider  this  fact,  and  to 
gather  landmarks,  gazing  about  me  diligently 
and  musing  on  my  unknown  course ;  for  the 
ways  divided  before  me  as  foot-paths  do  in 
fields,  each  looking  like  all  and  all  like  each. 
While  I  stood  uncertain,  and  sensitively  anx 
ious  to  make  no  mistake,  I  heard  the  hit !  hit ! 
of  light  feet  patting  the  grass  behind  me,  and, 
turning,  saw  a  little  fellow  coming  lik*e  the 
morning  wind  across  the  plain.  His  bright 
hair  blew  straight  before  him,  from  his  fore- 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  217 

head.  He  ran  sturdily.  How  beautiful  he 
was ! 

He  did  not  call  me  nor  show  the  slightest 
fear  lest  he  should  fail  to  overtake  me.  He 
had  already  learned  that  love  always  overtakes 
the  beloved  in  that  blessed  land. 

"You  forgot  your  little  boy,"  he  said  re 
proachfully,  and  put  his  hand  quietly  within 
mine  and  walked  on  beside  me,  and  forgot  that 
he  had  been  forgotten  immediately,  and  looked 
upward  at  me  radiantly. 

Remembering  the  command  to  await  what 
should  occur,  and  do  as  my  heart  prompted, 
I  accepted  this  accident  as  part  of  a  purpose 
wiser  than  my  own,  and  kissed  the  little  fel 
low,  and  we  traveled  on  together. 

As  we  came  into  the  hill  country,  our  way 
grew  wilder  and  more  desolate.  The  last  of 
the  stray  travelers  whom  we  chanced  to  meet 
was  now  well  behind  us.  In  the  wide  spaces 
we  were  quite  alone.  Behind  us,  dim  and  dis 
tant,  shimmering  like  an  opal  in  a  haze  of  fair 
half-tints,  the  city  shone.  On  either  side  of  us, 
the  forest  trees  began  to  tread  solemnly,  like  a 


218  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

vast  procession  which  no  man  could  number, 
keeping  step  to  some  inaudible  march.  Be 
fore  us,  the  great  crest  of  the  mountains  tow 
ered  dark  as  death  against  the  upper  sky.  As 
we  drew  near,  the  loneliness  of  these  hills  was 
to  me  as  something  of  which  I  had  never  con 
ceived  before.  Earth  did  not  hold  their  like 
ness,  and  my  heart  had  never  held  their  mean 
ing.  I  could  almost  have  dreaded  them,  as  we 
came  nearer  to  them ;  but  the  deviation  of  the 
paths  had  long  since  ceased.  In  the  desolate 
country  which  we  were  now  crossing  choice  was 
removed  from  conduct.  There  was  but  one 
course  for  me  to  take ;  I  took  it  unhesitatingly 
and  without  fear,  which  belongs  wholly  to  the 
lower  life. 

As  we  advanced,  the  great  mountain  barrier 
rose  high  and  higher  before  us,  till  it  seemed 
to  shut  out  the  very  sky  from  our  sight,  and  to 
crush  us  apart  from  all  the  world,  —  nay,  from 
either  world  or  any,  I  could  have  thought,  so 
desolate  and  so  awful  was  the  spot.  But  when 
we  had  entered  the  shadow  formed  by  the 
mighty  range,  and  had  accustomed  our  eyes  to 


THE  GATES  BETWEEN.  219 

it  for  a  time,  I  perceived,  not  far  ahead  of  me, 
but  in  fact  quite  near  and  sudden  to  the  view, 
a  long,  dark,  sharp  defile  cut  far  into  the  heart 
of  the  hills.  The  place  had  an  unpleasant 
look,  and  I  stopped  before  it  to  regard  it.  It 
was  so  grim  of  aspect  and  so  assured  of  out 
line,  like  a  trap  for  travelers  which  had  hung 
there  from  all  eternity,  that  I  liked  it  not,  and 
would  not  that  the  child  should  enter  till  I  had 
first  inspected  it.  Therefore,  I  bade  him  sit 
and  rest  upon  a  bed  of  crimson  mosses  which 
grew  at  the  feet  of  a  great  rock,  and  to  remain 
until  he  saw  me  turn  to  him  again;  and  with 
many  cautions  and  the  most  minute  directions 
for  his  obedience  and  his  comfort,  I  left  him, 
and  advanced  alone. 

My  way  had  now  grown  quite  or  almost 
dark.  The  light  of  heaven  and  earth  alike 
seemed  banished  from  the  dreadful  spot.  As 
it  narrowed,  the  footing  grew  uncertain  and 
slippery,  and  the  air  dense  and  damp.  I  had 
to  remind  myself  that  I  was  now  become  a 
being  for  whom  physical  danger  had  ceased 
forever. 


220  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

"  What  a  place,"  I  thought,  "  for  one  less 
fortunate  !  " 

As  these  words  were  in  my  mind,  I  lifted  my 
eyes  and  looked,  and  saw  that  I  was  not  alone 
in  the  dark  defile.  A  figure  was  coming  to 
ward  me,  slight  of  build  and  delicate  ;  yet  it 
had  a  firm  tread,  and  moved  with  well-nigh  the 
balance  of  a  spirit  over  the  rough  and  giddy 
way.  As  I  watched  it,  I  saw  that  it  was  a 
woman.  Uncertain  for  the  moment  what  to 
do,  I  remembered  the  command. 

"  Await  what  shall  occur,  and  do  as  thy 
heart  prompteth."  And  therefore  —  for  my 
heart  prompted  me,  as  a  man's  must,  to  be  of 
service  to  the  woman  —  I  hastened,  and  ad 
vanced,  and  midway  of  the  place  I  met  her. 

It  was  now  perfectly  dark.  I  could  not 
see  her  face.  When  I  would  have  spoken 
with  her,  and  given  her  good  cheer,  I  could  not 
^find  my  voice.  If  she  said  aught  to  me,  I 
could  not  hear  her.  But  I  gathered  her  hands, 
and  held  her,  and  led  her  on,  and  shielded 
her,  and  gave  her  such  comfort  as  a  man  by 
strength  and  silence  may  give  a  woman  when 


THE   GATES  BETWEEN.  221 

she  has  need  of  him  ;  and,  as  I  supported  her 
and  aided  her,  I  thought  of  my  dear  wife,  and 
prayed  God  that  there  might  be  found  some 
soul  of  fire  and  snow  —  since  to  me  it  was  de 
nied  —  to  do  as  much  as  this  for  her,  in  some 
hour  of  her  unknown  need. 

But  when  I  had  led  the  woman  out  into  the 
lighter  space,  and  turned  to  look  upon  her,  lo, 
it  was  none  other.  It  was  she  herself.  It 
was  my  wife.  It  was  no  man's  beloved  but 
my  own.  .  .  . 

So,  then,  crying, 

"Helen!" 

And,  "  Forgive  me,  Helen  !  "  till  the  dark      ) 
place  rang  with  her  dear  name,  I  bowed  my-    / 
self  and  sunk  before  her,  and  could  not  put 
forth  my  hand  to  touch  her,  for  I  thought  of 
how  we  parted,  and  it  seemed  my  heart  would 
break. 

But  she  said, 

"  Why,  my  dear  Love  !     Oh,  my  poor  Love ! 
Did  you  think  I  would  remember  that  ?  " 
//    And  I  felt  her  sacred  tears  upon  my  face, 


222  THE   GATES  BETWEEN. 

and  she  crept  to  me,  —  oh,  not  royally,  not 
royally,  like  a  wife  who  was  wronged,  but 
like  the  sweetest  woman  in  the  world,  who 
clung  to  me  because  she  could  not  help  it,  and 
would  not  if  she  could.  .  .  . 

P_^>  But  when  we  turned  our  footsteps  toward 
the  light,  and  came  out  together,  hand  in 
hand,  there  was  our  little  boy,  at  play  upon 
the  bed  of  crimson  moss,  and  smiling  like  the 
face  of  joy  eternal. 

So  his  mother  held  out  her  arms,  and  the 
child  ran  into  them.  And  when  we  came  to 
ourselves,  we  blessed  Almighty  God. 


Perceiving  that  inquiry  will  be  raised  touch 
ing  the  means  by  which  I  have  been  enabled 
to  give  this  record  to  the  living  earth,  I  have 
this  reply  to  make  : 

That  is  my  secret.     Let  it  remain  such. 


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The  Same.     Illustrated.     161110 i.oo 

The  Same.    Handy-  Volume  Edition.    321110   ....  i.oo 

Harriet  and  Sophia  Lee. 

Canterbury  Tales.    In  three  volumes.     The  set,  i6mo  3.75 

Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow. 

Hyperion.     A  Romance.     i6mo !-5O 

Popular  Edition.     i6mo 40 

Popular  Edition.     Paper  covers,  161110 15 

Outre-Mer.     i6mo 1.50 

Popular  Edition.     i6mo 40 

Popular  Edition.     Paper  covers,  i6mo 15 

Kavanagh.     i6mo 1.50 

Hyperion,  Outre-Mer  and  Kavanagh.     2  vols.  crown 

8vo 3.00 

Flora  Haines  Longhead. 

The  Man  who  was  Guilty.     i6mo,  paper  covers      .     .  .50 

Married  for  Fun. 

By  an  Anonymous  Author.     161110,  paper  covers    .     .  .50 

S.  Weir  Mitchell. 

In  War  Time.     i6mo 1.25 

Roland  Blake.     i6mo 1.25 

Mrs.  M.  O.  W.  Oliphant  and  T.  B.  Aldrich. 

The  Second  Son 

Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps. 

The  Gates  Ajar.     161110 1.50 

Beyond  the  Gates.     i6mo 1.25 

Men,  Women,  and  Ghosts.     i6mo 1.50 

Hedged  In.     i6mo 1.50 

The  Silent  Partner.     i6mo 1.50 

The  Story  of  Avis.     i6mo 1.50 

Sealed  Orders,  and  Other  Stories.     i6mo 1.50 

Friends:  A  Duet.     i6mo 1.25 

Doctor  Zay.     i6mo 1.25 

An  Old  Maid's  Paradise,  and  Burglars  in  Paradise. 

i6mo 1.25 

An  Old  Maid's  Paradise.     i6mo,  paper  covers  ...  .50 

Burglars  in  Paradise.     i6mo,  paper  covers 5° 

Madonna  of  the  Tubs.     Illustrated.     Crown  8vo    .     .  1.50 

The  Gates  Between.     i6mo 1.25 

Jack.     Illustrated.     Square  I2mo 50 

Marian  C.  L.  Reeves  and  Emily  Read. 

Pilot  Fortune.     i6mo 1.25 

Riverside  Paper  Series. 

i.  But  Yet  a  Woman.     By  A.  S.  Hardy. 


IO  Works  of  Fiction  Published  by 

2.  Missy.    By  Miriam  Coles  Harris. 

3.  The  Stillwater  Tragedy.     By  T.  B.  Aldrich. 

4.  Elsie  Venner.     By  O.  W.  Holmes. 

5.  An  Earnest  Trifler.     By  Mary  A.  Sprague. 

6.  The  Lamplighter.     By  Maria  S.  Cummins. 

7.  Their  Wedding  Journey.     By  W.  D.  Howells. 

8.  Married  for  Fun.     Anonymous. 

9.  An  Old  Maid's  Paradise.     By  Miss  E.  S.  Phelps. 
10.  The  House  of  a  Merchant  Prince.     By  W.  H. 

Bishop, 
n.  An  Ambitious  Woman.     By  Edgar  Fawcett. 

12.  Marjorie's  Quest.      By  Jeanie  T.  Gould. 

13.  Hammersmith.     By  Mark  Sibley  Severance. 

14.  Burglars  in  Paradise.   By  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps. 

15.  A  Perfect  Adonis.     By  Miriam  Coles  Harris. 

16.  Stories  and  Romances.     By  H.  E.  Scudder. 

17.  Leslie  Goldthvvaite.    By  Mrs.  A.  D.  T.  Whitney. 

18.  The   Man  who  was   Guilty.      By  Flora  Haines 

Loughead. 

19.  The  Guardian  Angel.     By  O.  W.  Holmes. 

20.  (Discontinued.} 

21.  Prudence  Palfrey.     By  T.  B.  Aldrich. 

22.  Pilot  Fortune.     By  Marian   C.   L.   Reeves   and 

Emily  Read. 

23.  Not  in  the  Prospectus.     By  Parke  Danforth. 

24.  Choy  Susan,  and  Other  Stories.  By  W.  H.  Bishop. 

25.  Sam    Law  son's    Fireside    Stories.      By   Harriet 

Beecher  Stowe. 

26.  A  Chance  Acquaintance.     By  W.  D.   Howells. 
Each  volume,  i6mo,  paper  covers $0.50 

Riverside  Pocket  Series. 

1.  Deephaven.     By  Sarah  Orne  Jewett. 

2.  Exile.     ("Little  Classics.") 

3.  Adirondack  Stories.     By  P.  Deming. 

4.  A  Gentleman  of  Leisure.     By  Edgar  Fawcett. 

5.  Snow-Image,  and  other  Twice-Told  Tales.     By 

N.  Hawthorne. 

6.  Watch  and  Ward.     By  Henry  James. 

7.  In  the  Wilderness.     By  C.  D.  Warner. 

8.  Study  of  Hawthorne.     By  G.  P.  Lathrop. 

9.  Detmold.     By  W.  H.  Bishop. 

10.  Story  of  a  Mine.     By  Bret  Harte. 

Each  volume,  i6mo,  cloth 50 

Josiah  Royce. 

The  Feud  of  Oakfield  Creek.     (In  Press}. 

Joseph  Xavier  Boniface  Saintine. 

Picciola.     Illustrated.    i6mo I.OO 


Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Company.  11 

Jacques  Henri  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre. 

Paul  and  Virginia.     Illustrated.     i6mo $1.00 

The  Same,  together  with  Undine,  and  Sintram.   321110      .75 

Sir  Walter  Scott. 

The  Waverley  Novels.  Ilhistrated  Library  Edition, 
Illustrated  with  100  engravings  by  Darley,  Dielman, 
Fredericks,  Low,  Share,  Sheppard.  With  glossary 
and  a  full  index  of  characters.  In  25  volumes,  i2mo. 

Waverley.  The  Antiquary. 

Guy  Mannering.  Rob  Roy. 

Old  Mortality.  St.  Ronan's  Well. 

Black  Dwarf,  and  Legend      Redgauntlet. 
of  Montrose.  The  Betrothed,  and  The 

Heart  of  Mid-Lothian.  Highland  Widow. 

Bride  of  Lammermoor.  The  Talisman,  and  Other 

Ivanhoe  Tales. 

The  Monastery.  Woodstock. 

The  Abbot.  The  Fair  Maid  of  Perth. 

Kenihvorth.  Anne  of  Geierstein. 

The  Pirate.  Count  Robert  of  Paris. 

The  Fortunes  of  Nigel.  The  Surgeon's  Daughter, 

Peveril  of  the  Peak.  and  Castle  Dangerous. 

Quentin  Durward. 

Each  volume i.oo 

The  set 25-00 

Tales  of  a  Grandfather.  Illustrated  Library  Edition. 
With  six  steel  plates.  In  three  volumes,  I2mo  .  .  4.50 

Ivanhoe.     Popular  Edition.     I2mo i.oo 

Horace  E.  Scudder. 

The  Dwellers  in  Five-Sisters'  Court.     i6mo  ....  1.25 

Stories  and  Romances.     i6mo 1.25 

The  Children's  Book.     Edited   by  MR.   SCUDDER. 

Small  4to 2.50 

Mark  Sibley  Severance. 

Hammersmith :  His  Harvard  Days.     I2mo    .     .     .     .     1.50 

J.  E.  Smith. 

Oakridge  :  An  Old-Time  Story  of  Maine.     1 2mo    .     .     2.00 

Mary  A.  Sprague. 

An  Earnest  Trifler.     i6mo  .     .     .     . ' 1.25 

William  W.  Story. 

Fiammetta.     i6mo 1.25 


12  Works  of  Fiction. 

Harriet  Beecher  Stovve. 

Agnes  of  Sorrento.     I2mo $1.50 

The  Pearl  of  Orr's  Island.     I2nio 1.50 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.     Illustrated  Edition.     I2mo  .     .     2.00 

The  Minister's  Wooing.     i2mo 50 

The  Mayflower,  and  Other  Sketches.     121110       ...       .50 
Dred.     New  Edition,  from  new  plates.     I2ino    ...       .50 

Oldtown  Folks.     I2mo 50 

Sam  Lawson's  Fireside  Stories.     i2mo 50 

My  Wife  and  I.     Illustrated.     i2mo 50 

We  and  Our  Neighbors.     Illustrated.     i2mo      ...       .50 

Poganuc  People.     Illustrated.     121110 50 

The  above  eleven  volumes,  in  box 16.00 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.     Holiday  Edition.     With  Intro 
duction,  and  Bibliography  by  George  Bullen,  of  the 
British  Museum.     Over  100  Illustrations.     I2mo     .     3.00 
The  Same.     Popular  Edition.     I2ino i.oo 

Octave  Thanet. 

Knitters  in  the  Sun.     i6mo 

Gen.  Lew  Wallace. 

The  Fair  God  ;  or,  The  Last  of  the  'Tzins.     I2mo  .     1.50 

Henry  Watterson. 

Oddities  in  Southern  Life.     Illustrated.     i6mo  .     .     .     1.50 

Richard  Grant  White. 

The  Fate  of  Mansfield  Humphreys,  with  the  Episode 

of  Mr.  Washington  Adams  in  England.     i6mo      .     1.25 

Adeline  D.  T.  Whitney. 

Faith  Gartney's  Girlhood.     Illustrated.     I2mo   ...       .50 

Hitherto:  A  Story  of  Yesterdays.     I2mo 50 

Patience  Strong's  Outings.     121110 50 

The  Gayworthys.     I2mo 50 

Leslie  Goldthwaite.     Illustrated.     I2mo 50 

We  Girls :  A  Home  Story.     Illustrated.     I2mo     .     .       .50 

Real  Folks.     Illustrated.     I2mo 1.50 

The  Other  Girls.     Illustrated.     I2mo 1.50 

Sights  and  Insights.     2  vols.  I2mo 3.00 

Odd,  or  Even  ?     i2mo 1.50 

Boys  at  Chequasset.     Illustrated.     I2mo 1.50 

Bonnyborough.     I2mo 1.50 

Homespun  Yarns.     Short  Stories i  50 

Lillie  Chace  Wyman. 

Poverty  Grass.     i6mo 1.25 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWE1 

LOAN  DEPT 


SSKS 


1978 


'0  DISC  CIRC    JUL23-92 


JAN  0  9  f996 

_ 

CIRCULATION  DEPT. 


LD2lA-50m-2,'71 
(P2001S10 )  476 — A-32 


Gener 
Universir 


9S3856 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


